Strain Tuning the Occupation of Candidate Topological Weyl States in W-Doped MoTe₂

Strain-induced modifications of the electronic structure in $T_d$ - ${\mathrm{Mo}}_{0.91}{W}_{0.09}{\mathrm{Te}}_2$ were studied using hard X-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (HARPES). Partial substitution of Mo with W stabilizes the metastable low-temperature orthorhombic $T_d$ phase of ${\mathrm{MoTe}}_2$ . Samples were first characterized by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments with soft X-rays and higher resolution, showing good agreement with ab initio calculations of electronic states related to topology. The modification of the bulk electronic structure due to the applied strain was assessed using operando HARPES. Applying tensile strain along the $a$ -axis with amplitudes up to 0.34% result in changes in the bulk electronic structure as predicted by previous ab-initio calculations. In particular, the results demonstrate a strain-driven depletion of electronic states with heavy masses and high scattering rates, leading to an increase in conductivity. In contrast, tensile strain along the $b$ -axis results in a significant increase in resistivity, which we confirmed by transport studies.