Robust one dimensionality at twin grain boundaries in MoSe2

Abstract

We show that 1D electron states confined at twin grain boundaries in MoSe2 can be modeled by a three-orbital tight-binding model including a minimum set of phenomenological hopping terms. The confined states are robust to the details of the defect hopping model, which agrees with their experimental ubiquity. Despite a valley Chern number which is finite and opposite on both sides of the defect, there is no topological protection of the confined states. This turns out to be an essential feature to have only one confined electronic band, in agreement with experiments, instead of two, as the bulk-edge correspondence would imply. Modeling the confined state as a 1D interacting electronic system allows us to unveil a mobile quantum-impurity-type behavior at energy scales beyond the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid with an interaction range which extends up to the lattice spacing, in excellent agreement with angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements.