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Quasiparticle interference and impurity resonances on WTe2

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Abstract

Using scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS), we examine quasiparticle scattering and interference properties at the surface of WTe2. WTe2, layered transition metal dichalcogenide, is predicted to be a type-II Weyl semimetal. The Weyl fermion states in WTe2 emerge as topologically protected touching points of electron and hole pockets, and Fermi arcs connecting them can be visible in the spectral function on the surface. To probe the properties of surface states, we have conducted low-temperature STM/STS (at 2.7 K) on the surfaces of WTe2 single crystals. We visualize the surface states of WTe2 with atomic scale resolution. Clear surface states emerging from the bulk electron pocket have been identified and their connection with the bulk electronic states shows good agreement with calculations. We show the interesting double resonance peaks in the local density of states appearing at localized impurities. The low-energy resonant peak occurs near the Weyl point above the Fermi energy and it may be mixed with the surface state of Weyl points, which makes it difficult to observe the topological nature of the Weyl semimetal WTe2.

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. Lee and J. Heo for useful discussions and other colleagues at the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT). This work has been supported by the Global Research Laboratory Program (No. 2016K1A1A2912707), Quantum Computing Development Program (No. 2019M3E4A1080227), the Basic Science Research Program (No. 2015M3A7B4050455) and the SRC Center for Topological Matter (No. 2018R1A5A6075964) through the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) in Korea. This work has been supported by Industrial Strategic Technology Development Program (No. 10085617) funded by the Ministry of Trade Industry & Energy (MOTIE) in Korea. This work has been supported by Institute for Basic Science (No. IBS-R011-D1). Supercomputing resources including technical service were supported by National Institute of Supercomputing and Network through Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (No. KSC-2018-S1-0008).

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Author notes

  1. Hyeokshin Kwon, Taehwan Jeong, and Samudrala Appalakondaiah contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Samsung Electronics Co., Suwon, 16678, Republic of Korea

    Hyeokshin Kwon, Youngtek Oh, Insu Jeon, Seongjun Park & Sungwoo Hwang

  2. SKKU Advanced Institute of Nano Technology (SAINT), Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 16419, Republic of Korea

    Taehwan Jeong, Samudrala Appalakondaiah, Young Jae Song & Euyheon Hwang

  3. Department of Nano Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 16419, Republic of Korea

    Samudrala Appalakondaiah, Young Jae Song & Euyheon Hwang

  4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea

    Hongki Min

  5. Department of Physics, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 16419, Republic of Korea

    Young Jae Song

  6. Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics (CINAP), Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 16419, Republic of Korea

    Young Jae Song

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  1. Hyeokshin Kwon
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Contributions

H. K. and E. H. designed the project. H. K. carried out the STM experiments with the help of Y. O., and I. J. and analyzed the STM data with T. J.. S. A., T. J., and E. H. performed ab initio calculations. S. P. and S. H. supervised the project. H. K., S. A., T. J., Y. J. S. and E. H. wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Seongjun Park, Young Jae Song or Euyheon Hwang.

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Kwon, H., Jeong, T., Appalakondaiah, S. et al. Quasiparticle interference and impurity resonances on WTe2. Nano Res. 13, 2534–2540 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2892-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2892-8

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