The occupied electronic structure of ultrathin boron doped diamond.

Using angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy, we compare the electronic band structure of an ultrathin (1.8 nm) δ-layer of boron-doped diamond with a bulk-like boron doped diamond film (3 µm). Surprisingly, the measurements indicate that except for a small change in the effective mass, there is no significant difference between the electronic structure of these samples, irrespective of their physical dimensionality, except for a small modification of the effective mass. While this suggests that, at the current time, it is not possible to fabricate boron-doped diamond structures with quantum properties, it also means that nanoscale boron doped diamond structures can be fabricated which retain the classical electronic properties of bulk-doped diamond, without a need to consider the influence of quantum confinement.

Ubiquitous formation of bulk Dirac cones and topological surface states from a single orbital manifold in transition-metal dichalcogenides.

Transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are renowned for their rich and varied bulk properties, while their single-layer variants have become one of the most prominent examples of two-dimensional materials beyond graphene. Their disparate ground states largely depend on transition metal d-electron-derived electronic states, on which the vast majority of attention has been concentrated to date. Here, we focus on the chalcogen-derived states. From density-functional theory calculations together with spin- and angle-resolved photoemission, we find that these generically host a co-existence of type-I and type-II three-dimensional bulk Dirac fermions as well as ladders of topological surface states and surface resonances. We demonstrate how these naturally arise within a single p-orbital manifold as a general consequence of a trigonal crystal field, and as such can be expected across a large number of compounds. Already, we demonstrate their existence in six separate TMDs, opening routes to tune, and ultimately exploit, their topological physics.

Spin-valley locking in the normal state of a transition-metal dichalcogenide superconductor.

Metallic transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are benchmark systems for studying and controlling intertwined electronic orders in solids, with superconductivity developing from a charge-density wave state. The interplay between such phases is thought to play a critical role in the unconventional superconductivity of cuprates, Fe-based and heavy-fermion systems, yet even for the more moderately-correlated TMDCs, their nature and origins have proved controversial. Here, we study a prototypical example, 2H-NbSe2, by spin- and angle-resolved photoemission and first-principles theory. We find that the normal state, from which its hallmark collective phases emerge, is characterized by quasiparticles whose spin is locked to their valley pseudospin. This results from a combination of strong spin-orbit interactions and local inversion symmetry breaking, while interlayer coupling further drives a rich three-dimensional momentum dependence of the underlying Fermi-surface spin texture. These findings necessitate a re-investigation of the nature of charge order and superconducting pairing in NbSe2 and related TMDCs.