Interfacial Atomic Structure of Twisted Few-Layer Graphene

A twist in bi- or few-layer graphene breaks the local symmetry, introducing a number of intriguing physical properties such as opening new bandgaps. Therefore, determining the twisted atomic structure is critical to understanding and controlling the functional properties of graphene. Combining low-angle annular dark-field electron microscopy with image simulations, we directly determine the atomic structure of twisted few-layer graphene in terms of a moiré superstructure which is parameterized by a single twist angle and lattice constant. This method is shown to be a powerful tool for accurately determining the atomic structure of two-dimensional materials such as graphene, even in the presence of experimental errors. Using coincidence-site-lattice and displacement-shift-complete theories, we show that the in-plane translation state between layers is not a significant structure parameter, explaining why the present method is adequate not only for bilayer graphene but also a few-layered twisted graphene.