Substrate engineering provides an opportunity to modulate the physical properties of quantum materials in thin film form. Here we report that TiSe2 thin films grown on TiO2 have unexpectedly large electron doping that suppresses the charge density wave (CDW) order. This is dramatically different from either bulk single crystal TiSe2 or TiSe2 thin films on graphene. The epitaxial TiSe2 thin films can be prepared on TiO2 via molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) in two ways: by conventional co-deposition using selenium and titanium sources, and by evaporating only selenium on reconstructed TiO2 surfaces. Both growth methods yield atomically flat thin films with similar physical properties. The electron doping and subsequent suppression of CDW order can be explained by selenium vacancies in the TiSe2 film, which naturally occur when TiO2 substrates are used. This is due to the stronger interfacial bonding that changes the ideal growth conditions. Our finding provides a way to tune the chemical potential of chalcogenide thin films via substrate selection and engineering.
@article{arxiv.1806.00197,
title = {Suppression of Charge Density Wave by Substrate Induced Doping on TiSe$_2$/TiO$_2$ Heterostructure},
author = {Tao Jia and Slavko N. Rebec and Shujie Tang and Kejun Xu and Hafiz M. Sohail and Makoto Hashimoto and Dong-Hui Lu and Robert G. Moore and Zhi-Xun Shen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.00197},
year = {2018}
}