Stabilization and manipulation of electronically phase-separated ground states in defective indium atom wires on silicon

Circular Dichroism of Emergent Chiral Stacking Orders in Quasi-One-Dimensional Charge Density Waves

Chirality-driven optical properties in charge density waves are of fundamental and practical importance. Here, we investigate the interaction between circularly polarized light and emergent chiral stacking orders in quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) charge-density waves (CDWs) with density-functional theory calculations. In our specific system, self-assembled In nanowires on a Si(111) surface, spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking leads to four symmetrically distinct degenerate quasi-1D CDW structures, which exhibit geometrical chirality. Such geometrical chirality may naturally induce optically active phenomena even when the quasi-1D CDW structures are stacked perpendicular to the CDW chain direction. Indeed, we find that left- and right-chiral stacking orders show distinct circular dichroism responses while a nonchiral stacking order has no circular dichroism. Such optical responses are attributed to the existence of glide mirror symmetry of the CDW stacking orders. Our findings suggest that the CDW chiral stacking orders can lead to diverse active optical phenomena such as chirality-dependent circular dichroism, which can be observed in scanning tunneling luminescence measurements with circularly polarized light.

Dynamical Metal to Charge-Density-Wave Junctions in an Atomic Wire Array

We investigated the atomic scale electronic phase separation emerging from a quasi-1D charge-density-wave (CDW) state of the In atomic wire array on a Si(111) surface. Spatial variations of the CDW gap and amplitude are quantified for various interfaces of metallic and insulating CDW domains by scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (STS). The strong anisotropy in the metal-insulator junctions is revealed with an order of magnitude difference in the interwire and intrawire junction lengths of 0.4 and 7 nm, respectively. The intrawire junction length is reduced dramatically by an atomic scale impurity, indicating the tunability of the metal-insulator junction in an atomic scale. Density functional theory calculations disclose the dynamical nature of the intrawire junction formation and tunability.

Origin of Symmetric Dimer Images of Si(001) Observed by Low-Temperature Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

It has been a long-standing puzzle why buckled dimers of the Si(001) surface appeared symmetric below ~20 K in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments. Although such symmetric dimer images were concluded to be due to an artifact induced by STM measurements, its underlying mechanism is still veiled. Here, we demonstrate, based on a first-principles density-functional theory calculation, that the symmetric dimer images are originated from the flip-flop motion of buckled dimers, driven by quantum tunneling (QT). It is revealed that at low temperature the tunneling-induced surface charging with holes reduces the energy barrier for the flipping of buckled dimers, thereby giving rise to a sizable QT-driven frequency of the flip-flop motion. However, such a QT phenomenon becomes marginal in the tunneling-induced surface charging with electrons. Our findings provide an explanation for low-temperature STM data that exhibits apparent symmetric (buckled) dimer structure in the filled-state (empty-state) images.