Exploring the Local Electronic Structure of Monolayer 1T'-WTe$_{2}$ via Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy

The transition metal dichalcogenides host many novel electronic states of matter, and still others have been theoretically predicted. For example, strong spin-orbit coupling is known to cause type-II Weyl semimetal behavior in the three-dimensional T$_{d}$ phase of WTe$_{2}$, and has also been predicted to lead to two-dimensional topological insulator behavior in the single-layer 1T' phase of WTe$_{2}$. We have used scanning tunneling spectroscopy to help test this latter prediction by measuring the local electronic structure of single-layer WTe$_{2}$ in the 1T' phase. Our scanning tunneling spectroscopy measurements reveal spatial variations in the local electronic structure between the edge of WTe$_{2}$ single layers and their interior bulk regions.