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Register a new userLength-scales of interfacial coupling between metal-insulator phases in oxides
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Claribel Dominguez Ordonez
Publication date
2019
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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Controlling phase transitions in transition metal oxides remains a central feature of both technological and fundamental scientific relevance. A well-known example is the metal-insulator transition which has been shown to be highly controllable while a less well understood aspect of this phenomenon is the length scale over which the phases can be established. To gain further insight into this issue, we have atomically engineered an artificially phase separated system through fabricating epitaxial superlattices consisting of SmNiO$_{3}$ and NdNiO$_{3}$, two materials undergoing a metal-to-insulator transition at different temperatures. By combining advanced experimental techniques and theoretical modeling, we demonstrate that the length scale of the metal-insulator transition is controlled by the balance of the energy cost of the domain wall between a metal and insulator and the bulk energetics. Notably, we show that the length scale of this effect exceeds that of the physical coupling of structural motifs, introducing a new paradigm for interface-engineering properties that are not available in bulk
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I review the microscopic spin-orbital Hamiltonian and ground state properties of spin one-half spinel oxides with threefold $t_{2g}$ orbital degeneracy. It is shown that for any orbital configuration a ground state of corresponding spin only Hamiltonian is infinitely degenerate in the classical limit. The extensive classical degeneracy is lifted by the quantum nature of the spins, an effect similar to order-out-of-disorder phenomenon by quantum fluctuations. This drives the system to a non-magnetic spin-singlet dimer manifold with a residual degeneracy due to relative orientation of dimers. The magneto-elastic mechanism of lifting the ``orientational degeneracy is also briefly reviewed.
We show that a class of compounds with $I$4/$mcm$ crystalline symmetry hosts three-dimensional semi-Dirac fermions. Unlike the known two-dimensional semi-Dirac points, the degeneracy of these three-dimensional semi-Dirac points is not lifted by spin-orbit coupling due to the protection by a nonsymmorphic symmetry -- screw rotation in the $a-b$ plane and a translation along the $c$ axis. This crystalline symmetry is found in tetragonal perovskite oxides, realizable in thin films by epitaxial strain that results in a$^0$a$^0$c$^-$-type octahedral rotation. Interestingly, with broken time-reversal symmetry, two pairs of Weyl points emerge from the semi-Dirac points within the Brillouin zone, and an additional lattice distortion leads to enhanced intrinsic anomalous Hall effect. We discuss possible fingerprints of this symmetry-protected band topology in electronic transport experiments.
Magnetism of transition metal (TM) oxides is usually described in terms of the Heisenberg model, with orientation-independent interactions between the spins. However, the applicability of such a model is not fully justified for TM oxides because spin polarization of oxygen is usually ignored. In the conventional model based on the Anderson principle, oxygen effects are considered as a property of the TM ion and only TM interactions are relevant. Here, we perform a systematic comparison between two approaches for spin polarization on oxygen in typical TM oxides. To this end, we calculate the exchange interactions in NiO, MnO, and hematite (Fe2O3) for different magnetic configurations using the magnetic force theorem. We consider the full spin Hamiltonian including oxygen sites, and also derive an effective model where the spin polarization on oxygen renormalizes the exchange interactions between TM sites. Surprisingly, the exchange interactions in NiO depend on the magnetic state if spin polarization on oxygen is neglected, resulting in non-Heisenberg behavior. In contrast, the inclusion of spin polarization in NiO makes the Heisenberg model more applicable. Just the opposite, MnO behaves as a Heisenberg magnet when oxygen spin polarization is neglected, but shows strong non-Heisenberg effects when spin polarization on oxygen is included. In hematite, both models result in non-Heisenberg behavior. General applicability of the magnetic force theorem as well as the Heisenberg model to TM oxides is discussed.
We have performed systematic tight-binding (TB) analyses of the angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) spectra of transition-metal (TM) oxides A$M$O$_3$ ($M=$ Ti, V, Mn, and Fe) with the perovskite-type structure and compared the obtained parameters with those obtained from configuration-interaction (CI) cluster-model analyses of photoemission spectra. The values of $epsilon_d-epsilon_p$ from ARPES are found to be similar to the charge-transfer energy $Delta$ from O $2p$ orbitals to empty TM 3d orbitals and much larger than $Delta-U/2$ ($U$: on-site Coulomb energy) expected for Mott-Hubbard-type compounds including SrVO$_3$. $epsilon_d-epsilon_p$ values from {it ab initio} band-structure calculations show similar behaviors to those from ARPES. The values of the $p-d$ transfer integrals to describe the global electronic structure are found to be similar in all the estimates, whereas additional narrowing beyond the TB description occurs in the ARPES spectra of the $d$ band.
High temperature superconductivity has been found in many kinds of compounds built from planes of Cu and O, separated by spacer layers. Understanding why critical temperatures are so high has been the subject of numerous investigations and extensive controversy. To realize high temperature superconductivity, parent compounds are either hole-doped, such as {La$_{2}$CuO$_4$} (LCO) with Sr (LSCO), or electron doped, such as {Nd$_{2}$CuO$_4$} (NCO) with Ce (NCCO). In the electron doped cuprates, the antiferromagnetic phase is much more robust than the superconducting phase. However, it was recently found that the reduction of residual out-of-plane apical oxygens dramatically affects the phase diagram, driving those compounds to a superconducting phase. Here we use a recently developed first principles method to explore how displacement of the apical oxygen (A-O) in LCO affects the optical gap, spin and charge susceptibilities, and superconducting order parameter. By combining quasiparticle self-consistent GW (QSemph{GW}) and dynamical mean field theory (DMFT), that LCO is a Mott insulator; but small displacements of the apical oxygens drive the compound to a metallic state through a localization/delocalization transition, with a concomitant maximum $d$-wave order parameter at the transition. We address the question whether NCO can be seen as the limit of LCO with large apical displacements, and elucidate the deep physical reasons why the behaviour of NCO is so different than the hole doped materials. We shed new light on the recent correlation observed between T$_c$ and the charge transfer gap, while also providing a guide towards the design of optimized high-Tc superconductors. Further our results suggest that strong correlation, enough to induce Mott gap, may not be a prerequisite for high-Tc superconductivity.
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