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Observation of drastic electronic structure change in one-dimensional moiré crystals

We report the first experimental observation of strong coupling effect in one-dimensional moiré crystals. We study one-dimensional double-wall carbon nanotubes (DWCNTs) in which van der Waals-coupled two single nanotubes form one-dimensional moiré superlattice. We experimentally combine Rayleigh scattering spectroscopy and electron beam diffraction on the same individual DWCNTs to probe the optical transitions of structure-identified DWCNTs in the visible spectral range. Among more than 30 structure-identified DWCNTs examined, we experimentally observed and identified a drastic change of optical transition spectrum in DWCNT with chirality (12,11)@(17,16). The origin of the marked change is attributed to the strong intertube coupling effect in a moiré superlattice formed by two nearly-armchair nanotubes. Our numerical simulation is consistent to these experimental findings.