Moiré patterns in van der Waals molecules/2D heterostructures

Moiré patterns often arise naturally from stacking two 2D crystals together. In the past, the focus has been on bilayers of 2D monolayer crystals stacked with different azimuthal angles. These patterns cause emergent optoelectronic properties and various exotic electronic phases. In this work, we investigate the feasibility in generating moiré patterns in van der Waals organic/2D heterostructures. Lattice constants of a number of epitaxial growth organic/2D heterostructures reported in the literature are used to search for moiré patterns that may emerge from these heterostructures. Patterns are generated by looking at the position of each organic molecule with respect to the underlying unit cell of the 2D crystal. We found that different moiré patterns such as ripples and hexagonal lattices, with periodicities ranging from a few nm to 10s of nm, can be found at such interfaces. Hence, epitaxial growth of organic molecules on 2D crystals can provide an alternative way to create a large variety of moiré patterns.