Electronic structure of monolayer CrTe₂: an antiferromagnetic two-dimensional van der Waals material

Magnetic van der Waals materials are an important building block to realize spintronic functionalities in heterostructures of two-dimensional (2D) materials. However, establishing their magnetic and electronic properties and the interrelationship between the magnetic ground state and electronic structure is often challenging because only a limited number of techniques can probe magnetism and electronic structure on length scales of tens to hundreds of nanometers. Chromium chalcogenides are a class of 2D magnetic materials for which a rich interplay between structure and magnetism has been predicted. Here, we combine angle-resolved photoemission and quasiparticle interference imaging to establish the electronic structure of a monolayer of CrTe₂ on graphite. From a comparison of model calculations with spectroscopic mapping using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy we establish the magnetic ground state and the low-energy electronic structure. We demonstrate that the band structure of monolayer CrTe₂ is captured well by density functional theory (DFT) in a DFT+ U framework when a Coulomb repulsion of U = 2.5eV is accounted for.