{
  "abstract": "Novel excitonics emerging in transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) heterostructures belong to the most exciting topics in contemporary physics of van der Waals materials. Interlayer excitons (IXs) stand out among those due to their long radiative lifetimes and tunability by electric fields, strain, and twist angle. However, many ambiguities persist in the optical identification and manipulation of IXs, highlighting the need for reliable spectroscopic criteria that distinguish interlayer species from spurious signals. Here, we introduce a decision-tree protocol that evaluates interlayer coupling via intralayer exciton quenching and correlates photoluminescence (PL) with atomic force microscopy to establish IX-compatibility of room-temperature PL features in TMDC-based heterostructures. Applied to MoS$_2$-MoSe$_2$ and MoS$_2$-WSe$_2$ heterostructures, it recovers the established momentum-direct IX between the K valleys of the two layers (KK-IX). In WS$_2$-WSe$_2$, a low-energy feature persists through flat, well-coupled regions and for both stacking orders, supporting its assignment as IX-compatible. In contrast, we find no compelling evidence that the widely reported bright, momentum-indirect, twist-angle-independent $Γ$K-IX signature in MoS$_2$-WSe$_2$ originates from interlayer emission. Comprehensive experimental data, including infrared and tip-enhanced photoluminescence, stacking order inversion, interface cleaning, control measurements on WSe$_2$/Au, and statistics on variously prepared samples, instead trace these features to locally decoupled and strained WSe$_2$ at interface bubbles and topographical irregularities. Our results expose a generic \"topography trap\" in real-world heterostructures and establish a practical minimum standard for robust IX assignments, the sift-IX protocol, through spatially resolved room-temperature optical and topographic characterization.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2605.20869",
  "author_total": 12,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Pablo Hernández López"
    },
    {
      "name": "Luka Pirker"
    },
    {
      "name": "Astrid Weston"
    },
    {
      "name": "Arijit Kayal"
    },
    {
      "name": "Rafael Nadas"
    },
    {
      "name": "Adrián Dewambrechies Fernández"
    },
    {
      "name": "Roman Gorbachev"
    },
    {
      "name": "Kirill I. Bolotin"
    },
    {
      "name": "Tim Verhagen"
    },
    {
      "name": "Álvaro Rodríguez"
    },
    {
      "name": "Otakar Frank"
    },
    {
      "name": "Sebastian Heeg"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/d319pry1sc1b1.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2605.20869",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "d319pry1sc1b1",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.20869",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "LicenseRef-arXiv-nonexclusive-1.0",
  "licence_label": "arXiv licence",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "cond-mat.mes-hall"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2505|2D Materials and Applications"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7162024788",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.20869",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-29",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/d319pry1sc1b1.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:36:22Z",
      "native_id": "2605.20869",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.20869"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:cond-mat.mes-hall",
      "subfield": "condensed-matter"
    }
  ],
  "title": "The Topography Trap: Sifting Interlayer Excitons from Strain-Related Artifacts in Real-World 2D Heterostructures",
  "title_text": "The Topography Trap: Sifting Interlayer Excitons from Strain-Related Artifacts in Real-World 2D Heterostructures",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-01T12:20:44Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/d319pry1sc1b1",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}