Emergent interweaved CDW unoccupied states in hole-doping LaTe2 with element substitution

Abstract

Multiple CDW-ordered layered rare-earth tellurides have increasingly emerged as a research hotspot, owing to their unconventional CDW formation, high transition temperature, and confirmed existence of axial Higgs modes. Recently, interweaved CDW in LaTe2 and its element-substituted phase LaTe2-xSbx have been investigated through TEM and ARPES measurements, revealing their distinct origins. Nevertheless, several complex diffraction features observed in TEM patterns remain unelucidated. In this work, we carried out scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) on LaTe1.6Sb0.4 crystals at 9 K. Three interweaved CDW wave vectors, q1=8/11a*, q2=5/11a* and q3=3/11a* were observed, which are induced by hole doping in unoccupied states. The q1 and q3 are theoretically verified to be nesting vectors connecting px- and py- bands. Furthermore, the satellite spots relative to the main Bragg spots p corresponding to a 11-a-superlattice have also been detected. Our findings provide critical insights for further exploring the origin of the interweaved CDW in hole/electron doping materials.