Enhancing Electron Coherence via Quantum Phonon Confinement in Atomically Thin Nb3SiTe6

Abstract

The extraordinary properties of two dimensional (2D) materials, such as the extremely high carrier mobility in graphene and the large direct band gaps in transition metal dichalcogenides MX2 (M = Mo or W, X = S, Se) monolayers, highlight the crucial role quantum confinement can have in producing a wide spectrum of technologically important electronic properties. Currently one of the highest priorities in the field is to search for new 2D crystalline systems with structural and electronic properties that can be exploited for device development. In this letter, we report on the unusual quantum transport properties of the 2D ternary transition metal chalcogenide - Nb3SiTe6. We show that the micaceous nature of Nb3SiTe6 allows it to be thinned down to one-unit-cell thick 2D crystals using microexfoliation technique. When the thickness of Nb3SiTe6 crystal is reduced below a few unit-cells thickness, we observed an unexpected, enhanced weak-antilocalization signature in magnetotransport. This finding provides solid evidence for the long-predicted suppression of electron-phonon interaction caused by the crossover of phonon spectrum from 3D to 2D.

Accepted by Nature Physics

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Cited by in corpus (15)

• Nonsymmorphic-symmetry-protected hourglass Dirac loop, nodal line, and Dirac point in bulk and monolayer $X_3$SiTe${}_6$ ($X=$ Ta, Nb)
• Unusual interlayer quantum transport behavior caused by the zeroth Landau level in YbMnBi2
• Gate-tunable Strong Spin-orbit Interaction in Two-dimensional Tellurium Probed by Weak-antilocalization
• Directional massless Dirac fermions in a layered van der Waals material with one-dimensional long-range order
• Anisotropic Infrared Response and Orientation-dependent Strain-tuning of the Electronic Structure in Nb2SiTe4
• Berry curvature dipole and nonlinear Hall effect in two-dimensional Nb${}_{2n+1}$Si${}_n$Te${}_{4n+2}$
• Inherited Weak Topological Insulator Signatures in Topological Hourglass Semimetal Nb3XTe6 (X = Si, Ge)
• Magneto-transport and Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in the layered ternary telluride Ta3SiTe6 topological semimetal
• Room-temperature quantum transport signatures in graphene/LaAlO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures
• Plasmons in a two-dimensional nonsymmorphic nodal-line semimetal
• Signatures of van Hove singularities in the anisotropic in-plane optical conductivity of the topological semimetal Nb${}_3$SiTe${}_6$
• Large Negative Magnetoresistance in off-Stochiometric Topological Material PrSbTe
• Optical Signature of Flat Bands in Topological Hourglass Semimetal Nb3SiTe6
• Topological semimetal phases in a family of monolayer X3YZ6 (X=Nb,Ta, Y=Si,Ge,Sn, Z=S,Se,Te) with abundant nodal lines and nodes
• Large-area and high-quality 2D transition metal telluride