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.

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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

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article

Nanoscale Polymorph Engineering of Metal-Correlated Insulator Junctions in Monolayer NbSe2

Liangguang Jia, Xu Han, Huixia Yang, Qing‐Feng Sun et al.
8 citations
ACS Nano
2D Materials and Applications
4.14
article

Nanoscale Polymorph Engineering of Metal-Correlated Insulator Junctions in Monolayer NbSe2

Liangguang Jia, Xu Han, Huixia Yang, Qing‐Feng Sun, Yeliang Wang, Lili Zhou, Yu Zhang, Yi-Xin Dai, Liwei Liu, Si Chen, Can Zhang, Wei Wang, Yaoyao Chen
article en
8 citations

Abstract

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.

ACS NanoVol. 19(15)
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)
National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Key Research and Development Program of China
Openalex Percentile: Top 6%
2D Materials and Applications
4.14
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