Possible Excitonic Insulating Phase in Quantum-Confined Sb Nanoflakes
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2024
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| _version_ | 1866929365881716736 |
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| author | Li, Zhi Nadeem, Muhammad Yue, Zengji Cortie, David Fuhrer, Michael Wang, Xiaolin |
| author_facet | Li, Zhi Nadeem, Muhammad Yue, Zengji Cortie, David Fuhrer, Michael Wang, Xiaolin |
| contents | In the 1960s, it was proposed that in small indirect band-gap materials, excitons can spontaneously form because the density of carriers is too low to screen the attractive Coulomb interaction between electrons and holes. The result is a novel strongly interacting insulating phase known as an excitonic insulator. Here we employ scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS) to show that the enhanced Coulomb interaction in quantum-confined elemental Sb nanoflakes drives the system to the excitonic insulator state. The unique feature of the excitonic insulator, a charge density wave (CDW) without periodic lattice distortion, is directly observed. Furthermore, STS shows a gap induced by the CDW near the Fermi surface. Our observations suggest that the Sb(110) nanoflake is an excitonic insulator. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_19566 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Possible Excitonic Insulating Phase in Quantum-Confined Sb Nanoflakes Li, Zhi Nadeem, Muhammad Yue, Zengji Cortie, David Fuhrer, Michael Wang, Xiaolin Materials Science In the 1960s, it was proposed that in small indirect band-gap materials, excitons can spontaneously form because the density of carriers is too low to screen the attractive Coulomb interaction between electrons and holes. The result is a novel strongly interacting insulating phase known as an excitonic insulator. Here we employ scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS) to show that the enhanced Coulomb interaction in quantum-confined elemental Sb nanoflakes drives the system to the excitonic insulator state. The unique feature of the excitonic insulator, a charge density wave (CDW) without periodic lattice distortion, is directly observed. Furthermore, STS shows a gap induced by the CDW near the Fermi surface. Our observations suggest that the Sb(110) nanoflake is an excitonic insulator. |
| title | Possible Excitonic Insulating Phase in Quantum-Confined Sb Nanoflakes |
| topic | Materials Science |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.19566 |