No Arabic abstract
We present a detailed low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy study of the commensurate charge density wave (CDW) in 1$T$-TiSe$_2$ in the presence of single atom defects. We find no significant modification of the CDW lattice in single crystals with native defects concentrations where some bulk probes already measure substantial reductions in the CDW phase transition signature. Systematic analysis of STM micrographs combined with density functional theory modelling of atomic defect patterns indicate that the observed CDW modulation lies in the Se surface layer. The defect patterns clearly show there are no 2$H$-polytype inclusions in the CDW phase, as previously found at room temperature [Titov A.N. et al, Phys. Sol. State 53, 1073 (2011). They further provide an alternative explanation for the chiral Friedel oscillations recently reported in this compound [J. Ishioka et al., Phys. Rev. B 84, 245125, (2011)].
The transition metal dichalcogenide 1T-TiSe2 is a quasi two-dimensional layered material with a charge density wave (CDW) transition temperature of TCDW 200 K. Self-doping effects for crystals grown at different temperatures introduce structural defects, modify the temperature dependent resistivity and strongly perturbate the CDW phase. Here we study the structural and doping nature of such native defects combining scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy and ab initio calculations. The dominant native single atom dopants we identify in our single crystals are intercalated Ti atoms, Se vacancies and Se substitutions by residual iodine and oxygen.
Ge_(1-x)Sn_x alloys have proved difficult to form at large x, contrary to what happens with other group IV semiconductor combinations. However, at low x they are typical examples of well-behaved substitutional compounds, which is desirable for harnessing the electronic properties of narrow band semiconductors. In this paper, we propose the appearance of another kind of single-site defect ($beta-Sn$), consisting of a single Sn atom in the center of a Ge divacancy, that may account for these facts. Accordingly, we examine the electronic and structural properties of these alloys by performing extensive numerical ab-initio calculations around local defects. The results show that the environment of the $beta$ defect relaxes towards a cubic octahedral configuration, facilitating the nucleation of metallic white tin and its segregation, as found in amorphous samples. Using the information stemming from these local defect calculations, we built a simple statistical model to investigate at which concentration these $beta$ defects can be formed in thermal equilibrium. These results agree remarkably well with experimental findings, concerning the critical concentration above which the homogeneous alloys cannot be formed at room temperature. Our model also predicts the observed fact that at lower temperature the critical concentration increases. We also performed single site effective-field calculations of the electronic structure, which further support our hypothesis.
The impact of variable Ti self-doping on the 1T-TiSe2 charge density wave (CDW) is studied by scanning tunneling microscopy. Supported by density functional theory we show that agglomeration of intercalated-Ti atoms acts as preferential nucleation centers for the CDW that breaks up in phaseshifted CDW domains whose size directly depends on the intercalated-Ti concentration and which are separated by atomically-sharp phase boundaries. The close relationship between the diminution of the CDW domain size and the disappearance of the anomalous peak in the temperature dependent resistivity allows to draw a coherent picture of the 1T-TiSe2 CDW phase transition and its relation to excitons.
Low dimensional systems with a vanishing band-gap and a large electron-hole interaction have been proposed to be unstable towards exciton formation. As the exciton binding energy increases in low dimension, conventional wisdom suggests that excitonic insulators should be more stable in 2D than in 3D. Here we study the effects of the electron-hole interaction and anharmonicity in single-layer TiSe2. We find that, contrary to the bulk case and to the generally accepted picture, the electron-hole exchange interaction is much smaller in 2D than in 3D and it has negligible effects on phonon spectra. By calculating anharmonic phonon spectra within the stochastic self-consistent harmonic approximation, we obtain TCDW = 440K for an isolated and undoped single-layer and TCDW = 364K for an electron-doping n = 4.6 x 10^13 cm^{-2} , close to the experimental result of 200-280K on supported samples. Our work demonstrates that anharmonicity and doping melt the charge density wave in single-layer TiSe2.
We investigate the low-temperature charge-density-wave (CDW) state of bulk TaS$_2$ with a fully self-consistent DFT+U approach, over which the controversy has remained unresolved regarding the out-of-plane metallic band. By examining the innate structure of the Hubbard U potential, we reveal that the conventional use of atomic-orbital basis could seriously misevaluate the electron correlation in the CDW state. By adopting a generalized basis, covering the whole David star, we successfully reproduce the Mott insulating nature with the layer-by-layer antiferromagnetic order. Similar consideration should be applied for description of the electron correlation in molecular solid.