Observation of a uniaxial strain-induced phase transition in the 2D topological semimetal IrTe${}_2$

Abstract

Strain is ubiquitous in solid-state materials, but despite its fundamental importance and technological relevance, leveraging externally applied strain to gain control over material properties is still in its infancy. In particular, strain control over the diverse phase transitions and topological states in two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) remains an open challenge. Here, we exploit uniaxial strain to stabilize the long-debated structural ground state of the 2D topological semimetal IrTe${}_2$, which is hidden in unstrained samples. Combined angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) data reveal the strain-stabilized phase has a 6x1 periodicity and undergoes a Lifshitz transition, granting unprecedented spectroscopic access to previously inaccessible type-II topological Dirac states that dominate the modified inter-layer hopping. Supported by density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we show that strain induces a charge transfer strongly weakening the inter-layer Te bonds and thus reshaping the energetic landscape of the system in favor of the 6x1 phase. Our results highlight the potential to exploit strain-engineered properties in layered materials, particularly in the context of tuning inter-layer behavior.

Main article: 9 pages, 4 figures; Methods: 3 pages; Supplementary: 8 pages, 7 figures, 1 table

References in corpus (9)

• 2D materials and van der Waals heterostructures
• Titanic Magnetoresistance in WTe2
• Dynamics and efficient conversion of excitons to trions in non-uniformly strained monolayer WS${}_2$
• Superconductivity Induced by Bond Breaking in the Triangular Lattice of IrTe2
• Anionic depolymerization transition in IrTe2
• Preferential out-of-plane conduction and quasi-one-dimensional electronic states in layered 1T-TaS2
• Hierarchical stripe phases in IrTe2 driven by competition between Ir dimerization and Te bonding
• Examining the surface phase diagram of IrTe${}_2$ with photoemission
• Role of a higher dimensional interaction in stabilizing charge density waves in quasi-1D NbSe${}_3$ revealed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy

Cited by in corpus (19)

• Superconductivity emerging from a stripe charge order in IrTe2 nanoflakes
• Modified interlayer stacking and insulator to correlated-metal transition driven by uniaxial strain in 1$T$-TaS${}_2$
• Hidden spin-orbital texture at the $\bar{\Gamma }$-located valence band maximum of a transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductor
• Chemical Principles of Intrinsic Topological Superconductors
• Uniaxial strain tuning of charge modulation and singularity in a kagome superconductor
• Spatially-resolved electronic structure of stripe domains in IrTe${}_2$ through electronic structure microscopy
• Strain control of a bandwidth-driven spin reorientation in Ca${}_3$Ru${}_2$O${}_7$
• Dimensional crossover of charge order in IrTe${}_2$ with strong interlayer coupling
• In-situ uniaxial pressure cell for X-ray and neutron scattering experiments
• Uniaxial stress effect on the electronic structure of quantum materials
• Type-II superconductivity in the Dirac semimetal PdTe2
• Evolution of electronic and magnetic properties of Sr${}_2$IrO${}_4$ under strain
• Insensitivity of the striped charge-orders in IrTe${}_2$ to alkali surface doping implies their structural origin
• Jordan-Wigner transformation constructed for spinful fermions at spin-1/2 in two dimensions
• Spin-orbital mixing in the topological ladder of the two-dimensional metal PtTe${}_2$
• Strain Engineering of Correlated Charge-Ordered Phases in 1T-TaS2
• Break of symmetry at the surface of IrTe${}_2$ upon phase transition measured by X-ray photoelectron diffraction
• Designer three-dimensional electronic bands in asymmetric transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures
• Modulation of quantum geometry and its coupling to pseudo-electric field by dynamic strain