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Molecular Beam Epitaxy of thin HfTe2 semimetal films

Epitaxial thin films of 1T-HfTe2 semimetal are grown by MBE on AlN(0001) substrates. The measured in-plane lattice parameter indicates an unstrained film which is also azimuthally aligned with the AlN substrate, albeit with an in-plane mosaic spread, as it would be expected for van der Waals epitaxy. Angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy combined with first principles electronic band structure calculations show steep linearly dispersing conduction and valence bands which cross near the Brillouin zone center, providing evidence that HfTe2 /AlN is an epitaxial topological Dirac semimetal.