TY - JOUR
T1 - Nanoscale Polymorph Engineering of Metal-Correlated Insulator Junctions in Monolayer NbSe2
AU - Chen, Yaoyao
AU - Dai, Yi Xin
AU - Zhang, Yu
AU - Zhang, Can
AU - Zhou, Lili
AU - Jia, Liangguang
AU - Wang, Wei
AU - Han, Xu
AU - Yang, Hui Xia
AU - Liu, Liwei
AU - Si, Chen
AU - Sun, Qing Feng
AU - Wang, Ye Liang
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2025/4/22
Y1 - 2025/4/22
N2 - Lateral junctions composed of quantum many-body materials are highly desirable for realizing physical phenomena and device concepts. However, controllable fabrication of high-quality junctions is challenging, which greatly hinders further exploration. Here, we successfully realize monolayer heterophase homojunctions of metallic H-NbSe2 and correlated insulating T-NbSe2 with atomically sharp boundaries via nanoscale polymorph engineering. By applying a scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) tip pulse, T-NbSe2 can be locally introduced from H-NbSe2 on the side beneath the tip, thus realizing H/T-NbSe2 heterophase homojunctions. Our in situ STM measurements, complementary by the theoretical calculations, reveal two types of atomically sharp boundaries with distinct abilities for electron transmission, owing to the structure-dependent boundary coupling effects. Moreover, there are significant electronic interactions among the metallic, correlated insulating, and charge-density-wave states at the H/T-NbSe2 boundaries. Our results provide insight into the interacting mechanism among diverse quantum many-body states.
AB - Lateral junctions composed of quantum many-body materials are highly desirable for realizing physical phenomena and device concepts. However, controllable fabrication of high-quality junctions is challenging, which greatly hinders further exploration. Here, we successfully realize monolayer heterophase homojunctions of metallic H-NbSe2 and correlated insulating T-NbSe2 with atomically sharp boundaries via nanoscale polymorph engineering. By applying a scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) tip pulse, T-NbSe2 can be locally introduced from H-NbSe2 on the side beneath the tip, thus realizing H/T-NbSe2 heterophase homojunctions. Our in situ STM measurements, complementary by the theoretical calculations, reveal two types of atomically sharp boundaries with distinct abilities for electron transmission, owing to the structure-dependent boundary coupling effects. Moreover, there are significant electronic interactions among the metallic, correlated insulating, and charge-density-wave states at the H/T-NbSe2 boundaries. Our results provide insight into the interacting mechanism among diverse quantum many-body states.
KW - charge-density-wave
KW - electron correlation
KW - heterophase homojunction
KW - polymorph engineering
KW - scanning tunneling microscopy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105002679790&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acsnano.4c17964
DO - 10.1021/acsnano.4c17964
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:105002679790
SN - 1936-0851
VL - 19
SP - 14808
EP - 14816
JO - ACS Nano
JF - ACS Nano
IS - 15
ER -