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Quantum billiards with correlated electrons confined in triangular transition metal dichalcogenide monolayer nanostructures

Forcing systems through fast non-equilibrium phase transitions offers the opportunity to study new states of quantum matter that self-assemble in their wake. Here we study the quantum interference effects of correlated electrons confined in monolayer quantum nanostructures, created by femtosecond la...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ravnik, Jan, Vaskivskyi, Yevhenii, Vodeb, Jaka, Aupič, Polona, Vaskivskyi, Igor, Golež, Denis, Gerasimenko, Yaroslav, Kabanov, Viktor, Mihailovic, Dragan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8213767/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34145280
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24073-0
Descripción
Sumario:Forcing systems through fast non-equilibrium phase transitions offers the opportunity to study new states of quantum matter that self-assemble in their wake. Here we study the quantum interference effects of correlated electrons confined in monolayer quantum nanostructures, created by femtosecond laser-induced quench through a first-order polytype structural transition in a layered transition-metal dichalcogenide material. Scanning tunnelling microscopy of the electrons confined within equilateral triangles, whose dimensions are a few crystal unit cells on the side, reveals that the trajectories are strongly modified from free-electron states both by electronic correlations and confinement. Comparison of experiments with theoretical predictions of strongly correlated electron behaviour reveals that the confining geometry destabilizes the Wigner/Mott crystal ground state, resulting in mixed itinerant and correlation-localized states intertwined on a length scale of 1 nm. The work opens the path toward understanding the quantum transport of electrons confined in atomic-scale monolayer structures based on correlated-electron-materials.