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We present experimental evidence of electronic and optical interlayer resonances in graphene van der Waals heterostructure interfaces. Using the spectroscopic mode of a low-energy electron microscope (LEEM), we characterized these interlayer resonant states up to 10 eV above the vacuum level. Compared with nontwisted, AB-stacked bilayer graphene (AB BLG), an $\ensuremath{\approx}0.2\text{ }\text{ }\AA{}$ increase was found in the interlayer spacing of 30\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{} twisted bilayer graphene (30\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}-tBLG). In addition, we used Raman spectroscopy to probe the inelastic light-matter interactions. A unique type of Fano resonance was found around the D and G modes of the graphene lattice vibrations. This anomalous, robust Fano resonance is a direct result of quantum confinement and the interplay between discrete phonon states and the excitonic continuum.

Flat band electronic states are proposed to be a fundamental tool to achieve various quantum states of matter at higher temperatures due to the enhanced electronic correlations. However, materials with such peculiar electronic states are rare and often rely on subtle properties of the band structures. Here, by using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we show the emergent flat band in a VSe2 / Bi2Se3 heterostructure. Our photoemission study demonstrates that the flat band covers the entire Brillouin zone and exhibits 2D nature with a complex circular dichroism. In addition, the Dirac cone of Bi2Se3 is not reshaped by the flat band even though they overlap in proximity of the Dirac point. These features make this flat band distinguishable from the ones previously found. Thereby, the observation of a flat band in the VSe2 / Bi2Se3 heterostructure opens a promising pathway to realize strongly correlated quantum effects in topological materials. Dispersionless flat bands are often required to observe unusual quantum states of matter. Here, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) reveals a flat band electronic structure in a VSe2/Bi2Se3 heterostructure, and exhibits complex circular dichroism.

We have used selected area low energy electron diffraction intensity-voltage (μLEED-IV) analysis to investigate the surface structure of crystalline 2H molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) and mechanically exfoliated and suspended monolayer MoS2. Our results show that the surface structure of bulk 2H-MoS2 is distinct from its bulk and that it has a slightly smaller surface relaxation at 320 K than previously reported at 95 K. We concluded that suspended monolayer MoS2 shows a large interlayer relaxation compared to the MoS2 sandwich layer terminating the bulk surface. The Debye temperature of MoS2 was concluded to be about 600 K, which agrees with a previous theoretical study. Our work has shown that the dynamical μLEED-IV analysis performed with a low energy electron microscope (LEEM) is a powerful technique for determination of the local atomic structures of currently extensively studied two-dimensional (2-D) materials.

The transition-metal dichalcogenide compounds ${\mathrm{MoTe}}_{2}$ and ${\mathrm{WTe}}_{2}$ are polymorphic with both semiconducting and metallic phases. The thermodynamically stable phase of ${\mathrm{WTe}}_{2}$ at room temperature is orthorhombic and metallic and displays a wide range of interesting phenomena including type-II Weyl fermions, titanic magnetoresistance and superconductivity in bulk, and quantum spin Hall insulator behavior in the monolayer case. On the other hand, the stable phase of ${\mathrm{MoTe}}_{2}$ at room temperature is a trigonal prismatic semiconductor that has a direct gap in the monolayer with strong spin-orbit coupling. The alloy series ${\mathrm{Mo}}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}{\mathrm{W}}_{x}{\mathrm{Te}}_{2}$ thus offers the possibility for tuning the structural and, consequently, electronic phases via tuning of the composition. Here, we report comprehensive studies of the electronic structure of ${\mathrm{Mo}}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}{\mathrm{W}}_{x}{\mathrm{Te}}_{2}$ alloys using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and first-principles calculations as a function of composition. At room temperature, we find a sharp boundary between the orthorhombic and the trigonal prismatic phases at $x=0.10$ using structural characterization. We also show that by compositional tuning it is possible to control the band inversion in this series of compounds thus yielding important consequences for topological surface states.

The surface structure of black phosphorus materials is determined using surface-sensitive dynamical microspot low energy electron diffraction ($\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{LEED}$) analysis using a high spatial resolution low energy electron microscopy (LEEM) system. Samples of (i) crystalline cleaved black phosphorus (BP) at 300 K and (ii) exfoliated few-layer phosphorene (FLP) of about 10 nm thickness which were annealed at 573 K in vacuum were studied. In both samples, a significant surface buckling of 0.22 \AA{} and 0.30 \AA{}, respectively, is measured, which is one order of magnitude larger than previously reported. As direct evidence for large buckling, we observe a set of (for the flat surface forbidden) diffraction spots. Using first-principles calculations, we find that the presence of surface vacancies is responsible for the surface buckling in both BP and FLP, and is related to the intrinsic hole doping of phosphoresce materials previously reported.