No Arabic abstract
Switching voltage of first-order metal-insulator transition (MIT) in VO_2, an inhomogeneous strongly correlated system, is changed by irradiating an infrared light with wavelength, 1.5 micrometer, and applying the electric field (photo-induced switching). This was predicted in the hole-driven MIT theory in which hole doping of a low concentration below 0.01% into conduction band (Fermi surface) induces the abrupt MIT as correlation effect. The switching is explained by the Mott transition not the Peierls transition.
The metal-insulator transition in correlated electron systems, where electron states transform from itinerant to localized, has been one of the central themes of condensed matter physics for more than half a century. The persistence of this question has been a consequence both of the intricacy of the fundamental issues and the growing recognition of the complexities that arise in real materials, even when strong repulsive interactions play the primary role. The initial concept of Mott was based on the relative importance of kinetic hopping (measured by the bandwidth) and on-site repulsion of electrons. Real materials, however, have many additional degrees of freedom that, as is recently attracting note, give rise to a rich variety of scenarios for a ``Mott transition. Here we report results for the classic correlated insulator MnO which reproduce a simultaneous moment collapse, volume collapse, and metallization transition near the observed pressure, and identify the mechanism as collapse of the magnetic moment due to increase of crystal field splitting, rather than to variation in the bandwidth.
We study the origin of the temperature-induced Mott transition in Ca2RuO4. As a method we use the local-density approximation+dynamical mean-field theory. We show the following. (i) The Mott transition is driven by the change in structure from long to short c-axis layered perovskite (L-Pbca to S-Pbca); it occurs together with orbital order, which follows, rather than produces, the structural transition. (ii) In the metallic L-Pbca phase the orbital polarization is ~0. (iii) In the insulating S-Pbca phase the lower energy orbital, ~xy, is full. (iv) The spin-flip and pair-hopping Coulomb terms reduce the effective masses in the metallic phase. Our results indicate that a similar scenario applies to Ca_{2-x}Sr_xRuO_4 (x<0.2). In the metallic x< 0.5 structures electrons are progressively transferred to the xz/yz bands with increasing x, however we find no orbital-selective Mott transition down to ~300 K.
Since the beginnings of the electronic age, a quest for ever faster and smaller switches has been initiated, since this element is ubiquitous and foundational in any electronic circuit to regulate the flow of current. Mott insulators are promising candidates to meet this need as they undergo extremely fast resistive switching under electric field. However the mechanism of this transition is still under debate. Our spatially-resolved {mu}-XRD imaging experiments carried out on the prototypal Mott insulator (V0.95Cr0.05)2O3 show that the resistive switching is associated with the creation of a conducting filamentary path consisting in an isostructural compressed phase without any chemical nor symmetry change. This clearly evidences that the resistive switching mechanism is inherited from the bandwidth-controlled Mott transition. This discovery might hence ease the development of a new branch of electronics dubbed Mottronics.
We explore the coexistence region in the vicinity of the Mott critical end point employing a compressible cell spin-$1/2$ Ising-like model. We analyze the case for the spin-liquid candidate $kappa$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$Cu$_2$(CN)$_3$, where close to the Mott critical end point metallic puddles coexist with an insulating ferroelectric phase. Our results are fourfold: $i$) a universal divergent-like behavior of the Gruneisen parameter upon crossing the first-order transition line; $ii$) based on scaling arguments, we show that within the coexistence region, for $any$ system close to the critical point, the relaxation time is entropy-dependent; $iii$) we propose the electric Gruneisen parameter $Gamma_E$, which quantifies the electrocaloric effect; $iv$) we identify the metallic/insulating coexistence region as an electronic Griffiths-like phase. Our findings suggest that $Gamma_E$ governs the dielectric response close to the critical point and that an electronic Griffiths-like phase emerges in the coexistence region.
The combination of bandstructure theory in the local density approximation with dynamical mean field theory was recently successfully applied to V$_2$O$_3$ -- a material which undergoes the f amous Mott-Hubbard metal-insulator transition upon Cr doping. The aim of this sh ort paper is to emphasize two aspects of our recent results: (i) the filling of the Mott-Hubbard gap with increasing temperature, and (ii) the peculiarities of the Mott-Hubbard transition in this system which is not characterized by a diver gence of the effective mass for the $a_{1g}$-orbital.