A magnetic-field-driven transition from metallic- to semiconducting-type behavior in the basal-plane resistance takes place in highly oriented pyrolytic graphite at a field $H_c sim 1~$kOe applied along the hexagonal c-axis. The analysis of the data reveals a striking similarity between this transition and that measured in thin-film superconductors and Si MOSFETs. However, in contrast to those materials, the transition in graphite is observable at almost two orders of magnitude higher temperatures.
Applied magnetic field induces metal - insulator and re-entrant insulator-metal transitions in both graphite and rhombohedral bismuth. The corresponding transition boundaries plotted on the magnetic field - temperature (B - T) plane nearly coincide for these semimetals and can be best described by power laws T ~ (B - B_c)^k, where B_c is a critical field at T = 0 and k = 0.45 +/- 0.05. We show that insulator-metal-insulator (I-M-I) transformations take place in the Landau level quantization regime and illustrate how the IMT in quasi-3D graphite transforms into a cascade of I-M-I transitions, related to the quantum Hall effect in quasi-2D graphite samples. We discuss the possible coupling of superconducting and excitonic correlations with the observed phenomena, as well as the signatures of quantum phase transitions associated with the M-I and I-M transformations.
The superconductor-insulator transition in ultrathin films of amorphous Bi was tuned by changing the film thickness, with and without an applied magnetic field. The first experimentally obtained phase diagram is mapped as a function of thickness and magnetic field in the T=0 limit. A finite size scaling analysis has been carried out to determine the critical exponent product vz, which was found to be 1.2 for the zero field transition, and 1.4 for the finite field transition. Both results are different from the exponents found for the magnetic field tuned transition in the same system, 0.7.
A unique property of a dynamically generated quantum spin Hall state are Goldstone modes that correspond to the long-wavelength fluctuations of the spin-orbit coupling order parameter whose topological Skyrmion excitations carry charge 2$e$. Within the model considered here, upon varying the chemical potential, we observe two transitions: An s-wave superconducting order parameter develops at a critical chemical potential $mu_{c1}$, corresponding to the excitation gap of pairs of fermions, and at $mu_{c2}$ the SO(3) order parameter of the quantum spin Hall state vanishes. Using negative-sign-free, large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we show that $mu_{c1}=mu_{c2}$ within our accuracy -- we can resolve dopings away from half filling down to $delta = 0.0017$. The length scale associated with the fluctuations of the quantum spin Hall order parameter grows down to our lowest doping, suggesting either a continuous or a weakly first-order transition. Contrary to mean-field expectations, the doping versus chemical potential curve is not linear, indicating a dynamical critical exponent $z > 2$ if the transition is continuous.
We present a new type of colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) arising from an anomalous collapse of the Mott insulating state via a modest magnetic field in a bilayer ruthenate, Ti-doped Ca$_3$Ru$_2$O$_7$. Such an insulator-metal transition is accompanied by changes in both lattice and magnetic structures. Our findings have important implications because a magnetic field usually stabilizes the insulating ground state in a Mott-Hubbard system, thus calling for a deeper theoretical study to reexamine the magnetic field tuning of Mott systems with magnetic and electronic instabilities and spin-lattice-charge coupling. This study further provides a model approach to search for CMR systems other than manganites, such as Mott insulators in the vicinity of the boundary between competing phases.
The pressure induced superconducting phase diagram is calculated for an extension of the periodic Anderson model (PAM) in the $ U = infty $ limit taking into account the effect of a nearest neighbor attractive interaction between f-electrons. We analyze the role of the chemical potential compared to several plots of the f-band density of states and we also found a superconductor-insulator transition induced by pressure when the chemical potential crosses the hybridization gap.