Charge density wave states in phase-engineered monolayer VTe2

Abstract

Charge density wave (CDW) strongly affects the electronic properties of two-dimensional (2D) materials and can be tuned by phase engineering. Among 2D transitional metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), VTe2 was predicted to require small energy for its phase transition and shows unexpected CDW states in its T-phase. However, the CDW state of H-VTe2 has been barely reported. Here, we investigate the CDW states in monolayer (ML) H-VTe2, induced by phase-engineering from T-phase VTe2. The phase transition between T- and H-VTe2 is revealed with x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) measurements. For H-VTe2, scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) results show a robust 2 3 × 2 3 CDW superlattice with a transition temperature above 450 K. Our findings provide a promising way for manipulating the CDWs in 2D materials and show great potential in its application of nanoelectronics.