Chiral Charge Density Wave and Backscattering-Immune Orbital Texture in Monolayer 1 T-TiTe2

Nano Lett. 2023 Nov 8;23(21):10081-10088. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c03692. Epub 2023 Oct 30.

Abstract

Nontrivial electronic states are attracting intense attention in low-dimensional physics. Though chirality has been identified in charge states with a scalar order parameter, its intertwining with charge density waves (CDW), film thickness, and the impact on the electronic behaviors remain less well understood. Here, using scanning tunneling microscopy, we report a 2 × 2 chiral CDW as well as a strong suppression of the Te-5p hole-band backscattering in monolayer 1T-TiTe2. These exotic characters vanish in bilayer TiTe2 in a non-CDW state. Theoretical calculations prove that chirality comes from a helical stacking of the triple-q CDW components and, therefore, can persist at the two-dimensional limit. Furthermore, the chirality renders the Te-5p bands with an unconventional orbital texture that prohibits electron backscattering. Our study establishes TiTe2 as a promising playground for manipulating the chiral ground states at the monolayer limit and provides a novel path to engineer electronic properties from an orbital degree.

Keywords: backscattering suppression; chiral charge density wave; monolayer TiTe2; orbital texture.