Microscopic evidence for strong periodic lattice distortion in 2D charge-density wave systems

TL;DR

This study provides microscopic evidence that periodic lattice distortions, rather than electronic modulations, are the primary drivers of charge-density wave phases in layered transition metal dichalcogenides, challenging the Peierls mechanism.

Contribution

It demonstrates that lattice distortions dominate over electronic modulations in TMD-CDW systems, emphasizing the importance of lattice effects in CDW formation.

Findings

Lattice contributions are dominant in CDW states across studied TMDs.

Electronic modulation expected from Peierls transitions is not observed.

Periodic lattice distortion is crucial for CDW phase formation.

Abstract

In the quasi-2D electron systems of the layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD) there is still a controversy about the nature of the transitions to charge-density wave (CDW) phases, i.e. whether they are described by a Peierls-type mechanism or by a lattice-driven model. By performing scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments on the canonical TMD-CDW systems, we have imaged the electronic modulation and the lattice distortion separately in 2H-TaS$_2$, TaSe$_2$, and NbSe$_2$. Across the three materials, we found dominant lattice contributions instead of the electronic modulation expected from Peierls transitions, in contrast to the CDW states that show the hallmark of contrast inversion between filled and empty states. Our results imply that the periodic lattice distortion (PLD) plays a vital role in the formation of CDW phases in the TMDs and illustrate the importance of taking into account the more complicated lattice degree of freedom when studying correlated electron systems.