Quasi-Homoepitaxial Growth of Highly Strained Alkali-Metal Ultrathin Films on Kagome Superconductors.

Applying lattice strain to thin films, a critical factor to tailor their properties such as stabilizing a structural phase unstable at ambient pressure, generally necessitates heteroepitaxial growth to control the lattice mismatch with substrate. Therefore, while homoepitaxy, the growth of thin film on a substrate made of the same material, is a useful method to fabricate high-quality thin films, its application to studying strain-induced structural phases is limited. Contrary to this general belief, here the quasi-homoepitaxial growth of Cs and Rb thin films is reported with substantial in-plane compressive strain. This is achieved by utilizing the alkali-metal layer existing in bulk crystal of kagome metals AV3Sb5 (A = Cs and Rb) as a structural template. The angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements reveal the formation of metallic quantum well states and notable thickness-dependent quasiparticle lifetime. Comparison with density functional theory calculations suggests that the obtained thin films crystalize in the face-centered cubic structure, which is typically stable only under high pressure in bulk crystals. These findings provide a useful approach for synthesizing highly strained thin films by quasi-homoepitaxy, and pave the way for investigating many-body interactions in Fermi liquids with tunable dimensionality.

Moiré-Assisted Realization of Octahedral MoTe2 Monolayer.

A current key challenge in 2D materials is the realization of emergent quantum phenomena in hetero structures via controlling the moiré potential created by the periodicity mismatch between adjacent layers, as highlighted by the discovery of superconductivity in twisted bilayer graphene. Generally, the lattice structure of the original host material remains unchanged even after the moiré superlattice is formed. However, much less attention is paid for the possibility that the moiré potential can also modify the original crystal structure itself. Here, it is demonstrated that octahedral MoTe2 which is unstable in bulk is stabilized in a commensurate MoTe2 /graphene hetero-bilayer due to the moiré potential created between the two layers. It is found that the reconstruction of electronic states via the moiré potential is responsible for this stabilization, as evidenced by the energy-gap opening at the Fermi level observed by angle-resolved photoemission and scanning tunneling spectroscopies. The present results provide a fresh approach to realize novel 2D quantum phases by utilizing the moiré potential.

Fermiology and Origin of T_{c} Enhancement in a Kagome Superconductor Cs(V_{1-x}Nb_{x})_{3}Sb_{5}.

Kagome metals AV_{3}Sb_{5} (A=K, Rb, and Cs) exhibit a characteristic superconducting ground state coexisting with a charge density wave (CDW), whereas the mechanisms of the superconductivity and CDW have yet to be clarified. Here we report a systematic angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) study of Cs(V_{1-x}Nb_{x})_{3}Sb_{5} as a function of Nb content x, where isovalent Nb substitution causes an enhancement of superconducting transition temperature (T_{c}) and the reduction of CDW temperature (T_{CDW}). We found that the Nb substitution shifts the Sb-derived electron band at the Γ point downward and simultaneously moves the V-derived band around the M point upward to lift up the saddle point (SP) away from the Fermi level, leading to the reduction of the CDW-gap magnitude and T_{CDW}. This indicates a primary role of the SP density of states to stabilize the CDW. The present result also suggests that the enhancement of superconductivity by Nb substitution is caused by the cooperation between the expansion of the Sb-derived electron pocket and the recovery of the V-derived density of states at the Fermi level.

Selective Fabrication of Bismuthene and α-Bi on Hydrogen-Terminated SiC(0001).

Nanomaterials based on monoatomic bismuth (Bi) are attracting particular attention because they are candidates of two-dimensional (2D) topological insulators and Rashba metals useful for spintronic applications. We report convenient selective fabrication of two different types of ultrathin Bi films, bismuthene and α-Bi on hydrogen-terminated SiC(0001), by combining the molecular-beam-epitaxy (MBE) method and the low-temperature and low-pressure hydrogen chemical etching of SiC. We have succeeded in selectively fabricating these two different Bi phases by simply tuning the substrate temperature during the MBE process. We observed that while bismuthene and α-Bi showed a similar low-energy electron diffraction pattern of the (√3 × âˆš3)R30° periodicity, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy revealed a sizable difference in the band structure; bismuthene shows a massive Dirac cone, a signature of 2D topological insulators, whereas α-Bi exhibits an insulating behavior with a large band gap of more than 1.8 eV. We discuss the underlying mechanism of selective fabrication in terms of hydrogen desorption from the hydrogen-terminated SiC substrate.

Dirac semimetal phase and switching of band inversion in XMg2Bi2 (X = Ba and Sr).

Topological Dirac semimetals (TDSs) offer an excellent opportunity to realize outstanding physical properties distinct from those of topological insulators. Since TDSs verified so far have their own problems such as high reactivity in the atmosphere and difficulty in controlling topological phases via chemical substitution, it is highly desirable to find a new material platform of TDSs. By angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy combined with first-principles band-structure calculations, we show that ternary compound BaMg2Bi2 is a TDS with a simple Dirac-band crossing around the Brillouin-zone center protected by the C3 symmetry of crystal. We also found that isostructural SrMg2Bi2 is an ordinary insulator characterized by the absence of band inversion due to the reduction of spin-orbit coupling. Thus, XMg2Bi2 (X = Sr, Ba, etc.) serves as a useful platform to study the interplay among crystal symmetry, spin-orbit coupling, and topological phase transition around the TDS phase.