  Strain is ubiquitous in solid-state materials, but despite its fundamental
importance and technological relevance, leveraging externally applied strain to
gain control over material properties is still in its infancy. In particular,
strain control over the diverse phase transitions and topological states in
two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) remains an open
challenge. Here, we exploit uniaxial strain to stabilize the long-debated
structural ground state of the 2D topological semimetal IrTe$_2$, which is
hidden in unstrained samples. Combined angle-resolved photoemission
spectroscopy (ARPES) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) data reveal the
strain-stabilized phase has a 6x1 periodicity and undergoes a Lifshitz
transition, granting unprecedented spectroscopic access to previously
inaccessible type-II topological Dirac states that dominate the modified
inter-layer hopping. Supported by density functional theory (DFT) calculations,
we show that strain induces a charge transfer strongly weakening the
inter-layer Te bonds and thus reshaping the energetic landscape of the system
in favor of the 6x1 phase. Our results highlight the potential to exploit
strain-engineered properties in layered materials, particularly in the context
of tuning inter-layer behavior.
