A Moire superlattice on the topological insulator surface is predicted to exhibit many novel properties but has not been experimentally realized. Here, we developed a two-step growth method to successfully fabricate a topological insulator Sb2Te3 thin film with a Moire superlattice, which is generated by a twist of the topmost layer via molecular beam epitaxy. The established Moire topological surface state is characterized by scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. By application of a magnetic field, new features in Landau levels arise on the Moire region compared to the pristine surface of Sb2Te3, which makes the system a promising platform for pursuing next-generation electronics. Notably, the growth method, which circumvents contamination and the induced interface defects in the manual fabrication method, can be widely applied to other van der Waals materials for fabricating Moire superlattices.
@article{arxiv.2509.03322,
title = {Fabrication and Characterization of the Moir\'e surface state on a topological insulator},
author = {Yi Zhang and Dang Liu and Qiaoyan Yu and Ruijun Xi and Xingsen Chen and Shasha Xue and Jice Sun and Xian Du and Xuhui Ning and Tingwen Miao and Pengyu Hu and Hao Yang and Dandan Guan and Xiaoxue Liu and Liang Liu and Yaoyi Li and Shiyong Wang and Canhua Liu and Haijiao Ji and Noah F. Q. Yuan and Hao Zheng and Jinfeng Jia},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.03322},
year = {2025}
}