Lithium Intercalation into the Excitonic Insulator Candidate Ta₂NiSe₅

Abstract

A new reduced phase derived from the excitonic insulator candidate Ta 2 NiSe 5 has been synthesized via the intercalation of lithium. LiTa 2 NiSe 5 crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pmnb (no. 62) with lattice parameters a = 3.50247(3) Å, b = 13.4053(4) Å, c = 15.7396(2) Å, and Z = 4, with an increase of the unit cell volume by 5.44(1)% compared with Ta 2 NiSe 5 . Significant rearrangement of the Ta-Ni-Se layers is observed, in particular a very significant relative displacement of the layers compared to the parent phase, similar to that which occurs under hydrostatic pressure. Neutron powder diffraction experiments and computational analysis confirm that Li occupies a distorted triangular prismatic site formed by Se atoms of adjacent Ta 2 NiSe 5 layers with an average Li−Se bond length of 2.724(2) Å. Li-NMR experiments show a single Li environment at ambient temperature. Intercalation suppresses the distortion to monoclinic symmetry that occurs in Ta 2 NiSe 5 at 328 K and that is believed to be driven by the formation of an excitonic insulating state. Magnetometry data show that the reduced phase has a smaller net diamagnetic susceptibility than Ta 2 NiSe 5 due to the enhancement of the temperatureindependent Pauli paramagnetism caused by the increased density of states at the Fermi level evident also from the calculations, consistent with the injection of electrons during intercalation and formation of a metallic phase.