AT CRYOGENIC TEMPERATURES*

Nickel ditelluride (NiTe₂) is a member of the transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) family which has garnered interest due to predicted spin-polarized surface states near the Fermi level and the presence of Dirac nodes in its band structure. Recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) results have observed some of these features but is limited in its ability to probe states above the Fermi level or to detect the influence of surface defects. In this work, exfoliation of bulk NiTe₂ is performed under ultra-high vacuum (UHV) in order to generate a clean surface for scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (STM/STS) at cryogenic temperatures. Multiple peaks in the local density of electronic states (LDOS) are observed near the Fermi Level. To elucidate the nature of these features in the electronic structure, the LDOS is compared to calculated band structure obtained computationally from density functional theory (DFT) and to previous ARPES results.