Fast spectroscopic mapping of two-dimensional quantum materials

Abstract

Spectroscopic mapping refers to the massive recording of spectra whilst varying an additional degree of freedom, such as: magnetic field, location, temperature, or charge carrier concentration. As this involves two serial tasks, spectroscopic mapping can become excruciatingly slow. We demonstrate exponentially faster mapping through our combination of sparse sampling and parallel spectroscopy. We exemplify our concept using quasiparticle interference imaging of Au(111) and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 (Bi2212), as two well-known model systems. Our method is accessible, straightforward to implement with existing scanning tunneling microscopes, and can be easily extended to enhance gate or field-mapping spectroscopy. In view of a possible four orders of magnitude speed advantage, it is setting the stage to fundamentally promote the discovery of novel quantum materials.