Quantitative determination of twist angle and strain in Van der Waals moiré superlattices

Scanning probe techniques are popular, non-destructive ways to visualize the real space structure of Van der Waals moirés. The high lateral spatial resolution provided by these techniques enables extracting the moiré lattice vectors from a scanning probe image. We have found that the extracted values, while precise, are not necessarily accurate. Scan-to-scan variations in the behavior of the piezos which drive the scanning probe, and thermally-driven slow relative drift between probe and sample, produce systematic errors in the extraction of lattice vectors. In this Letter, we identify the errors and provide a protocol to correct for them. Applying this protocol to an ensemble of ten successive scans of near-magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene, we are able to reduce our errors in extracting lattice vectors to less than 1 translates to extracting twist angles with a statistical uncertainty less than 0.001 and uniaxial heterostrain with uncertainty on the order of 0.002