Epitaxial fabrication of two-dimensional TiTe<sub>2</sub> monolayer on Au(111) substrate with Te as buffer layer

Epitaxial fabrication of two-dimensional TiTe₂ monolayer on Au(111) substrate with Te as buffer layer

Song Zhipeng¹, Lei Bao¹, Cao Yun¹, Qi Jing¹, Peng Hao¹, Wang Qin¹, Huang Li¹, Lu Hongliang^{1, ‡}, Lin Xiao^{1, 2}, Wang Ye-Liang^{1, 3}, Du Shixuan^{1, 2}, Gao Hong-Jun^{1, 2}

(a) LEED pattern of TiTe₂ superstructure formed on Au(111) surface. The white circles indicate the diffraction spots originated from the Au(111) substrate. The additional diffraction spots are ascribed to the TiTe₂ and Te films. (b) Sketch of the diffraction spots shown in (a), which includes two groups of spots as shown in (c) and (d). Each group of spots is generated by three domains as represented in different colors. (e) and (f) Lattice structures in real space, corresponding to the diffraction spots indicated by the arrows in (c) and (d), respectively. These data reveal a superstructure of ( 3 × 7 ) as shown in (e) and a high order commensurate structure of (7/4, 1 | − 3 / 4 , 1) as shown in (f). Black circles in (e) and (f) indicate the lattices of the Au(111) substrate.