Examining the surface phase diagram of IrTe2 with photoemission

In the transition metal dichalcogenide IrTe2, low-temperature charge-ordered phase transitions involving Ir dimers lead to the occurrence of stripe phases of different periodicities, and nearly degenerate energies. Bulk-sensitive measurements have shown that, upon cooling, IrTe2 undergoes two such first-order transitions to (5×1×5) and (8×1×8) reconstructed phases at Tc1∼280 K and Tc2∼180 K, respectively. Here, using surface sensitive probes of the electronic structure of IrTe2, we reveal the first-order phase transition at Tc3=165 K to the (6×1) stripes phase, previously proposed to be the surface ground state. This is achieved by combining x-ray photoemission spectroscopy and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, which give access to the evolution of stripe domains and a particular surface state, the energy of which is dependent on the Ir dimer length. By performing measurements over a full thermal cycle, we also report the complete hysteresis of all these phases