Moiré superlattices formed by stacking two-dimensional crystals have reinvigorated the pursuit for emergent functionalities of engineered superlattices. Unique optical characteristics can be realized from the interplay between the electronic excitations and the atomic rearrangements owing to their intrinsic softness. Although large-scale reconstructions have been identified at small twist angles, they have been treated as being rigid at large twist angles. Here, we report that moiré superlattices made from single layers of MoS₂ and WSe₂ exhibit a pair of torsional strains with opposite chirality irrespective of the twist angle. The whirlpool-shaped periodic lattice distortions introduce fuzziness in the Raman spectra and universal redshifts to the intralayer excitons for all twist angles. We show that both of these modulations become weaker as the twist angle increases but do not disappear, whereas they are turned off when the constituent layers are not tightly coupled, thus establishing an essential structure–property relationship for moiré superlattices.

通过堆叠二维晶体形成的莫尔超晶格重新激发了对工程超晶格新兴功能的追求。由于其固有的柔软性，可以通过电子激发和原子重排之间的相互作用来实现独特的光学特性。尽管已经在小扭转角处确定了大规模重建，但它们已被视为在大扭转角处是刚性的。在这里，我们报告了由单层 MoS ₂和 WSe _{2制成的莫尔超晶格}无论扭转角如何，都表现出一对具有相反手性的扭转应变。漩涡状的周期性晶格畸变在拉曼光谱中引入了模糊性，并对所有扭转角的层内激子产生了普遍的红移。我们表明，随着扭转角的增加，这两种调制都变得更弱但不会消失，而当组成层不紧密耦合时它们会被关闭，从而为莫尔超晶格建立基本的结构-性质关系。