Fabricating van der Waals (vdW) bilayer heterostructures (BL-HS) by stacking the same or different two-dimensional (2D) layers, offers a unique physical system with rich electronic and optical properties. Twist-angle between component layers has emerged as a remarkable parameter that can control the period of lateral confinement, and nature of the exciton (Coulomb bound electron-hole pair) in reciprocal space thus creating exotic physical states including moiré excitons. In this review article, we focus on opto-electronic properties of excitons in twisted 2D transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) semiconductor BL-HS. We look at existing evidence of moiré excitons in localized and strongly correlated states, and at nanoscale mapping of moiré superlattice and lattice-reconstruction. This review will be helpful in guiding the community as well as motivating work in areas such as near-field optical measurements and controlling the creation of novel physical states.

Paper available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.07086