Theory of tunable flux lattices in the homobilayer moiré of twisted and uniformly strained transition metal dichalcogenides

Abstract

This work studies moir\'e structures formed in homobilayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) due to twisting and/or uniform strain, where the layer index serves as a pseudospin. The layer pseudospin exhibits vortex/antivortex textures in the moir\'e supercell. Such spatial texture gives rise to a pseudomagnetic field and a geometric scalar potential on low energy electrons. Strain and interlayer bias are shown to tune the in-plane and out-of-plane pseudospin texture, hence, the landscape of the moir\'e magnetic field and scalar potential. The findings suggest that TMD moir\'e structures are promising to build tunable flux lattices for exploration of novel transport and topological phenomena.