Temperature Evolution of Intradomain Chirality in the Nearly-Commensurate CDW State in 1T-TaS2

The discovery and manipulation of chiral charge density wave (CDW) states has opened the possibility for new electronic applications based on chiral domain switching. Recent work has provided atomic-scale details of the evolution of the CDW state from domain center to domain wall and uncovered an intradomain chiral nature to the nearly-commensurate charge density wave state (NC-CDW) in 1T-TaS2.[1] As opposed to a chiral CDW state originating from orbital ordering, as seen in related transition metal dichalcogenides, the intradomain chirality in 1T-TaS2 is proposed to originate from a strong coupling of the CDW state to the atomic lattice. Here we present our temperature-dependent scanning tunneling microscopy measurements across the temperature range of the NC-CDW state: from just below the ~355 K transition to the incommensurate CDW state to just above the ~180 K transition to the low-temperature commensurate CDW state. We examine the atomic-scale evolution of CDW domains and intradomain chirality with temperature.

[1] Singh et al., Physical Review B, 106, L081407, 2022.