Nanoscale Polymorph Engineering of Metal-Correlated Insulator Junctions in Monolayer NbSe<sub>2</sub>
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-NbSe<sub>2</sub> and correlated insulating T-NbSe<sub>2</sub> with atomically sharp boundaries via nanoscale polymorph engineering. By applying a scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) tip pulse, T-NbSe<sub>2</sub> can be locally introduced from H-NbSe<sub>2</sub> on the side beneath the tip, thus realizing H/T-NbSe<sub>2</sub> 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-NbSe<sub>2</sub> boundaries. Our results provide insight into the interacting mechanism among diverse quantum many-body states.
Authors
- Liangguang Jia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1536-8081)
- Xu Han (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5410-2502)
- Huixia Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6007-6686)
- Qing‐Feng Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5512-9608)
- Yeliang Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8896-0748)
- Lili Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8602-2141)
- Yu Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1290-7980)
- Yi-Xin Dai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3043-9052)
- Liwei Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5884-7333)
- Si Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4292-4151)
- Can Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8127-9282)
- Wei Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9267-6144)
- Yaoyao Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8897-5284)
Institutions
- Beijing Institute of Technology (CN)
- Peking University (CN)
- Hefei University (CN)
- Quantum (Australia) (AU)
- Advanced Research Institute (US)
- Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences (CN)
- Beihang University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- ACS Nano
- Published
- 2025-04-08
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.4c17964
- Citations
- 8
- Primary Topic
- 2D Materials and Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.14
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- National Key Research and Development Program of China