Strong interband interaction in the excitonic insulator phase of Ta2NiSe5

Abstract

Excitonic insulator (EI) was proposed in the 1960s as a distinct insulating state originating from pure electronic interaction, but its material realization has been elusive with extremely few material candidates and with only limited evidence such as anomalies in transport properties, band dispersions, or optical transitions. We investigate the real-space electronic states of the low-temperature phase in Ta2NiSe5 with atomic resolution to clearly identify the quasiparticle energy gap together with the strong electron-hole band renormalization using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (STS). These results are in good agreement with the EI transition scenario in Ta2NiSe5. Our spatially resolved STS data and theoretical calculations reveal further the orbital inversion at band edges, which indicates the exciton condensation close to the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer regime. © 2019 American Physical Society