Excitonic insulator emerging from semiconducting normal state in 1T−TiSe2

Abstract

A new state of matter, an excitonic insulator (EI) state, was predicted to emerge from Bose-Einstein condensation of electron-hole pairs. Some candidate materials were suggested but it has been elusive to confirm its existence. Recent works gave renewed support for the EI picture of the charge density wave (CDW) state below the critical temperature $T_c \approx 200 $ K of $1T$-TiSe$_{2}$. Yet, an important link to its establishment is to show that a majority fraction of the measured $T_c$ indeed follows from the Coulomb interaction alone, while a quantitative match of the $T_c$ may require assistance from the electron-lattice coupling. This will establish that the CDW is formed predominantly by the Coulomb interaction and help confirm the EI view for TiSe$_2$. Here, we provide such calculations by solving the exciton gap equation with material specific electronic structures. We obtain, with no fitting parameters, $T_c \approx 135 \pm 27$ K for the normal state gap of $E_g \approx 74 \pm 15$ meV. It seems that the calculated $T_c$ from Coulomb interaction gives a majority fraction of experimental $T_c$ for recently determined values of $E_g$. The measured doping dependence of $T_c$ was satisfactorily reproduced as well. Also in agreement with experiments are the same set of calculations of the photoemission spectroscopy and density of states. The semiconducting state above and EI below $T_c$ together should give a coherent picture of $1T$-TiSe$_2$.