For example, 1T-TaS2 undergoes a series of metastable states when the thickness is
reduced down to nanometer scale [9]. A robust Mott insulating state induced by
Coulomb correlation effect was found in monolayer 1T-TaSe2 with special orbital
texture [4].
However, 1T-NbSe2, as a member of CDWs in TMDs, has been paid less attention
either in 2D or bulk cases. As a matter of fact, 2H-NbSe2 is usually easier to be
fabricated than 1T phase, thus the 2H phase has been intensively investigated for its
CDWs [27-36]. Bulk 2H-NbSe2 undergoes the nearly commensurate charge density
wave (NCCDW) phase at 33 K with a 33 periodic superlattice, which shows the
independence of temperature [34]. With the temperature decreasing to 7 K, it hosts the
coexistence of superconductivity and incommensurate charge density wave (ICCDW)
[25,27]. And the CDW transition temperature was enhanced to 145 K from 33 K when
NbSe2 was exfoliated into monolayer [30], indicating the enhancement the critical
temperature of CDW order in 2D case. Recently, monolayer 1T-NbSe2 film was firstly
synthesized on bilayer graphene, and found to be a Mott insulator with a band gap of
0.4 eV [37]. Liu et al. [38] reported that the Mott upper Hubbard band of monolayer
1T-NbSe2 is distributed away from the center dz2 orbital in the √3 × √3 R30
periodicity. It has been proved that different stacking types of CDWs could also have
an impact on the metal-insulator transition and insulating phase, accompanied with an
interlayer Peierls dimerization [19]. And a possible metal-insulator transition was
observed when the interlayer antiferromagnetic order and electronic correlation effects
were taken into account in bulk 1T-NbS2 [39]. However, less attention has been paid to
the stacking effects and interlayer coupling in layered 1T-NbSe2.
In this work, we use the first-principles calculations to investigate the monolayer,
bilayer, and bulk 1T-NbSe2, especially to concentrate on the influence of stacking and
interlayer coupling towards the properties of CDW. The monolayer 1T-NbSe2 shows
metallicity in normal structure but insulator in the CDW phase using both PBE and PBE
+U methods. Each Star of David has 1 B total magnetic moment contributed mainly
by the central Nb atoms. Then we construct five different stacking orders bilayer 1T-
NbSe2 and find that the interlayer spin charger transfer can effectively influence the
local magnetic moments of bilayer CDW. In bulk case, the results indicate the CDW
phase is an out-of-plane metal without the consideration of interlayer magnetic order,
which is same as the first-principles results of bulk 1T-TaS2 [13,14,26,40]. Interestingly,
when the interlayer antiferromagnetic order is considered, the band structure opens a
gap, possibly making the system a Mott insulator. Moreover, by comparing five
stackings of bilayer and bulk CCDW, we elucidate the stacking dependence of the
electronic structure of 1T-NbSe2. Our work shows the mechanisms of interlayer
coupling and stacking order modulate the electronic structure and magnetic properties
of 1T-NbSe2, suggesting the critical role of interlayer coupling and stacking order in
understanding the magnetic properties in CDW materials.
II. COMPUTATIONAL METHODS
The density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed with the