Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 13, 2026

Optimized Fabrication Procedure for High-Quality Graphene-based Moiré Superlattice Devices
Published on: July 11, 2025
Imaging supermoiré relaxation in helical trilayer graphene
Jesse C Hoke1,2,3, Yifan Li1,2,3, Yuwen Hu1,2,3
1Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
None:
In twisted van der Waals materials, local atomic relaxation can alter the underlying electronic structure. Characterizing lattice reconstruction and its susceptibility to strain is essential for understanding emergent electronic states, especially in multilayers in which interference between moiré lattices yields larger supermoiré patterns whose energy is highly sensitive to local stacking. Here we image spatial modulations in the electronic character of helical trilayer graphene, which indicate relaxation into a superstructure of large domains with uniform moiré periodicity. We show that the supermoiré domain size is increased by strain and can be altered in the same device while preserving the local properties within each domain. Finally, we observe a higher conductance at the domain boundaries, consistent with predictions that they host counterpropagating edge modes. Our work provides a real-space visualization of moiré-periodic domains, reveals two independently tunable length scales and demonstrates strain engineering as a route towards designing correlated topological networks at the supermoiré scale.
Related Concept Videos
Atomic Nuclei: Types of Nuclear Relaxation
In spin–lattice or longitudinal relaxation, the excited spins exchange energy with the surrounding lattice as they return to the lower energy level. Among several mechanisms that contribute to spin–lattice relaxation, magnetic dipolar interactions are significant. Here, the excited nucleus transfers...
Atomic Nuclei: Nuclear Relaxation Processes

