No Arabic abstract
The mechanisms that drive metal-to-insulator transitions (MIT) in correlated solids are not fully understood. For example, the perovskite (PV) SrCoO3 is a FM metal while the oxygen-deficient (n-doped) brownmillerite (BM) SrCoO2.5 is an anti-ferromagnetic (AFM) insulator. Given the magnetic and structural transitions that accompany the MIT, the driver for such a MIT transition is unclear. We also observe that the perovskite metals LaNiO3, SrFeO3, and SrCoO3 also undergo MIT when n-doped via high-to-low valence compositional changes. Also, pressurizing the insulating BM SrCoO2.5 phase, drives a gap closing. Using DFT and correlated diffusion Monte Carlo approaches we demonstrate that the ABO3 perovskites most prone to MIT are self hole-doped materials, reminiscent of a negative charge-transfer system. Upon n-doping away from the negative-charge transfer metallic phase, an underlying charge-lattice (or e-phonon) coupling drives the system to a bond-disproportionated gapped state, thereby achieving ligand hole passivation at certain sites only, leading to charge-disproportionated states. The size of the gap opened is correlated with the size of the hole-filling at these ligand sites. This suggests that the interactions driving the gap opening to realize a MIT even in correlated metals is the charge-transfer energy, but it couples with the underlying phonons to enable the transition to the insulating phase. Other orderings (magnetic, charge, etc.) driven by weaker interactions are secondary and may assist gap openings at small dopings, but its the charge-transfer energy that predominantly determines the bandgap, with a negative energy preferring the metallic phase. This n-doping can be achieved by modulations in stoichiometry or composition or pressure. Hence, controlling the amount of the ligand-hole is key in controlling MIT. We compare our predictions to experiments where possible.
Hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskites have shown remarkable optoelectronic properties (1-3), believed to originate from correlated motion of charge carriers and the polar lattice forming large polarons (4-7). Few experimental techniques are capable of probing these correlations directly, requiring simultaneous sub-meV energy and femtosecond temporal resolution after absorption of a photon (8). Here we use transient multi-THz spectroscopy, sensitive to the internal motions of charges within the polaron, to temporally and energetically resolve the coherent coupling of charges to longitudinal optical phonons in single crystal CH3NH3PbI3 (MAPI). We observe room temperature quantum beats arising from the coherent displacement of charge from the coupled phonon cloud. Our measurements provide unambiguous evidence of the existence of polarons in MAPI.
We show that strong enough electric fields can trigger nucleation of needle-shaped metallic embryos in insulators, even when the metal phase is energetically unfavorable without the field. This general phenomenon is due to the gigantic induced dipole moments acquired by the embryos which cause sufficient electrostatic energy gain. Nucleation kinetics are exponentially accelerated by the field-induced suppression of nucleation barriers. Our theory opens the venue of field driven material synthesis. In particular, we briefly discuss synthesis of metallic hydrogen at standard pressure.
Transition metal oxides, in particular, 3d or 4d perovskites have provided diverse emergent physics that originates from the coupling of various degrees of freedom such as spin, lattice, charge, orbital, and also disorder. 5d perovskites form a distinct class because they have strong spin-orbit coupling that introduces to the system an additional energy scale that is comparable to bandwidth and Coulomb correlation. Consequent new physics includes novel Jeff = 1/2 Mott insulators, metal-insulator transitions, spin liquids, and topological insulators. After highlighting some of the phenomena appearing in Ruddlesden-Popper iridate series Srn+1IrnO3n+1, we focus on the transport properties of perovskite SrIrO3. Using epitaxial thin films on various substrates, we demonstrate that metal-insulator transitions can be induced in perovskite SrIrO3 by reducing its thickness or by imposing compressive strain. The metal-insulator transition driven by thickness reduction is due to disorder, but the metal-insulator transition driven by compressive strain is accompanied by peculiar non-Fermi liquid behaviors, possibly due to the delicate interplay between correlation, disorder, and spin-orbit coupling. We examine various theoretical frameworks to understand the non-Fermi liquid physics and metal-insulator transition that occurs in SrIrO3 and offer the Mott-Anderson-Griffiths scenario as a possible solution.
We consider how electron-phonon interaction influences the insulator-metal transitions driven by doping in the strongly correlated system. Using the polaronic version of the generalized tight-binding method, we investigate a multiband two-dimensional model taking into account both Holstein and Su-Schrieffer-Heeger types of electron-lattice contributions. For adiabatic ratio of the hopping parameter and the phonon field energy, different types of band structure evolution are observed in a wide electron-phonon parameter range. We demonstrate the relationship between transition features and such properties of the system as the polaron and bipolaron crossovers, pseudogap behavior of various origin, orbital selectivity, and the redistribution of the spectral weight due to the electron-phonon interaction.
We report X-ray structural studies of the metal-insulator phase transition in bismuth ferrite, BiFeO3, both as a function of temperature and of pressure (931 oC at atmospheric pressure and ca. 45 GPa at ambient temperature). Based on the experimental results, we argue that the metallic gamma-phase is not rhombohedral but is instead the same cubic Pm3m structure whether obtained via high temperature or high pressure, that the MI transition is second order or very nearly so, that this is a band-type transition due to semi-metal band overlap in the cubic phase and not a Mott transition, and that it is primarily structural and not an S=5/2 to S=1/2 high-spin/low-spin electronic transition. Our data are compatible with the orthorhombic Pbnm structure for the beta-phase determined definitively by the neutron scattering study of Arnold et al .[Phys. Rev. Lett. 2009]; the details of this beta-phase had also been controversial, with a remarkable collection of five crystal classes (cubic, tetragonal, orthorhombic, monoclinic, and rhombohedral!) all claimed in recent publications.