Emergent of the flat band and superstructures in the VSe2 / Bi2Se3 system

TL;DR

This study reports the discovery of a dispersionless flat band in a VSe2 / Bi2Se3 heterostructure, which could host novel quantum states and is characterized by complex topological and electronic properties.

Contribution

It reveals the emergence of a unique flat band in a heterostructure, with detailed experimental characterization suggesting potential topological and correlated quantum phenomena.

Findings

Flat band is dispersionless along multiple momenta

Flat band exhibits complex circular dichroism signals

Flat band does not alter the Dirac cone of Bi2Se3

Abstract

Dispersionless flat bands are proposed to be a fundamental ingredient to achieve the various sought after quantum states of matter including high-temperature superconductivity1-4 and fractional quantum Hall effect5-6. Materials with such peculiar electronic states, however, are very rare and often exhibit very complex band structures. Here, we report on the emergence of a flat band with a possible insulating ground state in the sub-monolayer VSe2 / Bi2Se3 heterostructure by means of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy. The flat band is dispersionless along the kll and kz momenta, filling the entire Brillouin zone, and it exhibits a complex circular dichroism signal reversing the sign at several points of the Brillouin zone. These properties together with the presence of a Moir\'e patterns in VSe2 suggest that the flat band is not a trivial disorder or confinement effect and could even be topologically non-trivial. Another intriguing finding is that the flat band does not modify the Dirac cone of Bi2Se3 around the Dirac point. Furthermore, we found that the flat band and the Dirac surface states of Bi2Se3 have opposite energy shifts with electron doping. This opens a novel way of controlling the spin texture of photocurrents as well as the transport properties of the heterostructure. These features make this flat band remarkably distinguishable from previous findings and our methodology can be applied to other systems opening a promising pathway to realize strongly correlated quantum effects in topological materials.