Honeycomb lattice in metal-rich chalcogenide Fe2Te

TL;DR

This paper reports the successful epitaxial growth of a novel honeycomb-structured Fe2Te film with unique electronic properties, opening new possibilities for honeycomb-based electronic devices.

Contribution

It introduces a new method to grow a honeycomb-structured Fe2Te film with no bulk analogue, expanding the material landscape for electronic applications.

Findings

Fe2Te exhibits electronic bands crossing the Fermi level.

Fe2Te has nearly flat electronic bands.

Weak interfacial interaction with substrate observed.

Abstract

Two-dimensional honeycomb crystals have inspired intense research interest for their novel properties and great potential in electronics and optoelectronics. Here, through molecular beam epitaxy on SrTiO3(001), we report successful epitaxial growth of metal-rich chalcogenide Fe2Te, a honeycomb-structured film that has no direct bulk analogue, under Te-limited growth conditions. The structural morphology and electronic properties of Fe2Te are explored with scanning tunneling microscopy and angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy, which reveal electronic bands cross the Fermi level and nearly flat bands. Moreover, we find a weak interfacial interaction between Fe2Te and the underlying substrates, paving a newly developed alternative avenue for honeycomb-based electronic devices.