No Arabic abstract
VO2 is a strongly correlated material, which undergoes a reversible metal insulator transition (MIT) coupled to a structural phase transition upon heating (T= 67{deg} C). Since its discovery the nature of the insulating state has long been debated and different solid-state mechanisms have been proposed to explain its nature: Mott-Hubbard correlation, Peierls distortion or a combination of both. Moreover, still now there is a lack of consensus on the interplay between the different degrees of freedom: charge, lattice, orbital and how they contribute to the MIT. In this manuscript we will investigate across the MIT the orbital evolution induced by a tensile strain applied to thin VO2 films. The strained films allowed to study the interplay between orbital and lattice degrees of freedom and to clarify MIT properties.
Soft x-ray spectroscopy is used to investigate the strain dependence of the metal-insulator transition of VO2. Changes in the strength of the V 3d - O 2p hybridization are observed across the transition, and are linked to the structural distortion. Furthermore, although the V-V dimerization is well-described by dynamical mean-field theory, the V-O hybridization is found to have an unexpectedly strong dependence on strain that is not predicted by band theory, emphasizing the relevance of the O ion to the physics of VO2.
Ultrathin epitaxial films of EuNiO3 were grown on a series of substrates traversing highly compressive (- 2.4%) to highly tensile (2.5%) lattice mismatch. X-ray diffraction measurements showed the expected c-lattice parameter shift for compressive strain, but no detectable shift for tensilely strained substrates, while reciprocal space mapping confirmed the tensile strained film maintained epitaxial coherence. Transport measurements showed a successively (from tensile to compressive) lower resistance and a complete suppression of the metalinsulator transition at highly compressive lattice mismatch. Corroborating these findings, X-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements revealed a strong multiplet splitting in the tensile samples that progressively weakens with increasing compressive strain that, combined with cluster calculations, showed enhanced covalence between Ni-d and O-p orbitals leads to the metallic state.
We have synthesized epitaxial NdNiO$_{3}$ ultra-thin films in a layer-by-layer growth mode under tensile and compressive strain on SrTiO$_{3}$ (001) and LaAlO$_3$ (001), respectively. A combination of X-ray diffraction, temperature dependent resistivity, and soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy has been applied to elucidate electronic and structural properties of the samples. In contrast to the bulk NdNiO$_{3}$, the metal-insulator transition under compressive strain is found to be completely quenched, while the transition remains under the tensile strain albeit modified from the bulk behavior.
We demonstrate control of the carrier density of single phase anatase TiO2 thin films by nearly two orders of magnitude by modulating the growth kinetics during pulsed laser deposition, under fixed thermodynamic conditions. The resistivity and the intensity of the photoluminescence spectra of these TiO2 samples, both of which correlate with the number of oxygen vacancies, are shown to depend strongly on the growth rate. A quantitative model is used to explain the carrier density changes.
We utilize near-infrared pump and mid-infrared probe spectroscopy to investigate the ultrafast electronic response of pressurized VO$_2$. Distinct pump-probe signals and a pumping threshold behavior are observed even in the pressure-induced metallic state showing a noticeable amount of localized electronic states. Our results are consistent with a scenario of a bandwidth-controlled Mott-Hubbard transition.