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Moiré-pattern-modulated electronic structures in Sb2Te3/graphene heterostructure

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Abstract

Moiré superlattice has recently been found in topological insulators, which can lead to periodic modulation on the electronic structure. In this work, we report the low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy study of Sb2Te3 films grown on graphitized 4H-SiC. We find that substrate temperature can strongly influence the rotation angles between Sb2Te3 film and graphene substrate. Three kinds of moiré patterns are observed at the first quintuple layer Sb2Te3 film under different substrate temperatures. One shows complicated patterns with a rotation angle of nearly 0° relative to the substrate, another just exhibits simple 1 × 1 structure with a rotation angle of 30°. Other rotation angle like 8.2° is observed at higher substrate temperature as well, which is relatively rare. Comparison of the dI/dV curves from Sb2Te3 films with different moiré patterns indicates that the superstructure can offer degrees of freedom in tailoring electronic structure. This work may stimulate the further study on the moiré modulation to the electronic properties of topological insulators.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Nos. 2019YFA0308600, 2020YFA0309000, 2016YFA0301003, and 2016YFA0300403), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Nos. 11521404, 11634009, 92065201, 11874256, 11874258, 12074247, 11790313, and 11861161003), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDB28000000) and the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (Nos. 2019SHZDZX01, 19JC1412701, and 20QA1405100) for partial support. GYW is funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2021M693095)

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Author notes

  1. Yin Yin and Guanyong Wang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Artificial Structures and Quantum Control (Ministry of Education), Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Yin Yin, Chen Liu, Haili Huang, Jiayi Chen, Jiaying Liu, Dandan Guan, Shiyong Wang, Yaoyii Li, Canhua Liu, Hao Zheng & Jinfeng Jia

  2. Shenzhen Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Guanyong Wang

  3. Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Dandan Guan, Shiyong Wang, Yaoyii Li, Canhua Liu, Hao Zheng & Jinfeng Jia

  4. CAS Center for Excellence in Topological Quantum Computation, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Jinfeng Jia

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  1. Yin Yin
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  2. Guanyong Wang
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Correspondence to Jinfeng Jia.

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Yin, Y., Wang, G., Liu, C. et al. Moiré-pattern-modulated electronic structures in Sb2Te3/graphene heterostructure. Nano Res. 15, 1115–1119 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3613-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3613-7

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