Barrier-bound States in Flat-band Systems

Abstract: As the fundamental quantum mechanical theory predicts, it is believed that electronic states can be bound only to potential wells and not to potential barriers in any dimension and their energies should be below the background potential. However, with the help of atomic lattice potentials with a flat electron band in momentum space in the background, an atomically thin 1D potential barrier can possess barrier-centered bound states above the background potential. Here we provide a theoretical proof using Green function pole analysis with Dyson equation that shows the existence of barrier-bound-states whose energy is elevated from the flat band energy nearly by the barrier height. The phenomenon is believed to be independently confirmed in a system of Pd monolayer on a flat oxide substrate with Stoner ferromagnetism using spin-polarized STM technique and through comparison with real-space QPI simulations using realistic 2D Pd band structure.