We study a model of a covalent band insulator with on-site Coulomb repulsion at half-filling using dynamical mean-field theory. Upon increasing the interaction strength the system undergoes a discontinuous transition from a correlated band insulator to a Mott insulator with hysteretic behavior at low temperatures. Increasing the temperature in the band insulator close to the insulator-insulator transition we find a crossover to a Mott insulator at elevated temperatures. Remarkably, correlations decrease the energy gap in the correlated band insulator. The gap renormalization can be traced to the low-frequency behavior of the self-energy, analogously to the quasiparticle renormalization in a Fermi liquid. While the uncorrelated band insulator is characterized by a single gap for both charge and spin excitations, the spin gap is smaller than the charge gap in the correlated system.
The phase diagram of model Mott-insulator--band-insulator heterostructures is studied using the semiclassical approximation to the dynamical-mean-field method as a function of thickness, coupling constant, and charge confinement. An interface-stabilized ferromagnetic phase is found, allow the study of its competition and possible coexistence with the antiferromagnetic order characteristic of the bulk Mott insulator.
The question if a Mott insulator and a band insulator are fundamentally different has been the matter of intensive research recently. Here we consider a simple model which allows by tuning one parameter to go continously from a Mott insulator to band insulator. The model consists of two Hubbard systems connected by single particle hopping. The Hubbard Hamiltonian is solved by the Dynamical Mean-Field theory using Quantum Monte Carlo to solve the resulting quantum impurity problem. The quasiparticle spectral function is calculated. Here we focus on the optical conductivity and in particular on …
Motivated by work on the bulk topological proximity effect and the topological bootstrap, we consider two coupled layers of quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) insulators with opposite signs of time-reversal breaking, which leads to a trivial band insulator at half-filling. We study the impact of interactions in this model within slave rotor theory, which leads to a layer-selective Mott transition, resulting in a fractionalized quantum anomalous Hall insulator QAH$^*$ where a Chern band insulator coexists with a chiral spin liquid. We also compute the edge electron spectral function in the vicinity o…
We use the dynamical mean field method to investigate electronic properties of heterostructures in which finite number of Mott-insulator layers are embedded in a spatially infinite band-insulator. The evolution of the correlation effects with the number of Mott insulating layers and with position in the heterostructure is determined, and the optical conductivity is computed. It is shown that the heterostructures are generally metallic, with moderately renormalized bands of quasiparticles appearing at the interface between the correlated and uncorrelated regions.
A theory of heterostructures comprised of LaTiO$_3$ (a Mott insulator) and SrTiO$_3$ (a band insulator) is presented. The band structure of the Ti $d$% -electrons is treated with a nearest neighbor tight-binding approximation; the electric fields arising from the La$^{3+}$/Sr$^{2+}$ charge difference and the carriers are treated within a Hartree approximation; and the on-site interactions are treated by unrestricted Hartree-Fock. The phase diagram as a function of interaction strength and layer number is determined and predictions are made for optical conductivity experiments. A note worthy fi…
We derive the phase diagram for the one-dimensional model of a ferroelectric perovskite recently introduced by Egami, Ishihara and Tachiki [Science, {\bf 261}, 1307 (1993)]. We show that the interplay between covalency, ionicity and strong correlations results in a spontaneously dimerized phase which separates the weak-coupling band insulator from the strong-coupling Mott insulator. The transition from the band insulator to the dimerized phase is identified as an Ising critical point. The charge gap vanishes at this single point with the optical conductivity diverging as $σ(ω)\sim ω^{-3/4}$. T…
I investigate band and Mott insulating states in a two-band Hubbard model, with the aim of understanding the differences between the idealised one-orbital model and the more realistic multi-band case. Using a projection ansatz I show that additional orbitals suppress the metal-insulator transition, leading to a critical coupling of approximately eight times the bare band-width. I also demonstrate the effects of orbital ordering, which hinder Mott-Hubbard states and open a band gap. Since multi-band correlations are common in real materials, this work suggests that the existence of very strongl…
We study the photo-excitation dynamics of correlated band insulators, using non-equilibrium dynamical mean-field theory for the ionic Hubbard model. We find two distinct behaviors, depending on the ratio of the on-site interaction $U$ and the bare band gap $Δ$. For small interactions, the relaxation is characterized by intra-band carrier scattering in relatively rigid bands, leading to a non-thermal intermediate state with separate thermal distributions of electrons and holes. This behavior can be viewed as typical for a band insulator with weak interactions. For larger interaction, on the oth…
The LDA+DMFT (local density approximation combined with dynamical mean-field theory) computation scheme has been used to study spectral and magnetic properties of FeSi and Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$Si. Having compared different models we conclude that a correlated band insulator scenario in contrast to Kondo insulator model agrees with FeSi band structure as well as experimental data. Coulomb correlation effects lead to band narrowing of the states near the Fermi level with mass renormalization parameter $m^*\approx 2$ in agreement with the results of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES).…
We have generalized the Gutzwiller method to the cases of n=>2 correlated bands and report studies on a degenerate two-band model with Hund's rule type on-site interactions. At half band filling the metal-insulator transitions are usually of first order.
We investigate the neutral-to-ionic insulator-insulator transition in one-dimensional materials by treating a strong-coupling effective model based on the ionic Hubbard model using the density-matrix renormalization group and finite-size scaling. The effective model, formulated in a spin-one representation, contains a single parameter. We carry out an extensive finite-size scaling analysis of the relevant gaps and susceptibilities to characterize the two zero-temperature transitions. We find that the transition from the ionic band-insulating phase to an intermediate spontaneously dimerized pha…
The phase transition driven by electron correlations in a Chern insulator is investigated within the dynamical mean-field theory. The Chern insulator is described by the Haldane model and the electron correlations are incorporated by introducing the short-range interaction between the itinerant electrons and localized fermions. In the preservation of the inversion symmetry, the electron correlations drive the system from the Chern insulator to a renormalized pseudogap metal, and then to the topologically trivial Mott insulator. When the inversion symmetry is broken, a charge ordering and a non…
The electronic structure at the interface between a topological band insulator and a Mott insulator is studied within layer dynamical mean field theory. To represent the bulk phases of these systems, we use the generalized Bernevig-Hughes-Zhang model that incorporates the Hubbard-like onsite Coulomb energy U in addition to the spin-orbit coupling term that causes band inversion. The topological and Mott insulating phases are realized by appropriately choosing smaller and larger values of U, respectively. As expected, the interface is found to be metallic because of the localized edge state. Wh…
The ground state of spin-1 Haldane chains is characterized by the so-called string order. We show that the same hidden order is also present in ordinary one-dimensional band insulators. We construct a family of Hamiltonians which connects adiabatically band insulators to two topologically non-equivalent spin models, the Haldane chain and the antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 ladder. We observe that the localized spin-1/2 edge-state characteristic of spin-1 chains is smoothly connected to a surface-bound state of band insulators and its emergence is not related to any bulk phase transition. Furthermor…
The $t_{2g}$ orbitals of an edge-shared transition-metal oxide with a honeycomb lattice structure form dispersionless electronic bands when only hopping mediated by the edge-sharing oxygens is accessible. This is due to the formation of isolated quasimolecular orbitals (QMOs) in each hexagon, introduced recently by Mazin et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 197201 (2012)], which stabilizes a band insulating phase for $t_{2g}^5$ systems. However, with help of the exact diagonalization method to treat the electron kinetics and correlations on an equal footing, we find that the QMOs are fragile against …
We investigate the ground state phase diagram of the half-filled $t-t^{\prime}$ repulsive Hubbard model in the presence of a staggered ionic potential $Δ$, using the continuum-limit bosonization approach. We find, that with increasing on-site-repulsion $U$, depending on the value of the next-nearest-hopping amplitude $t^{\prime}$, the model shows three different versions of the ground state phase diagram. For $t^{\prime} < t^{\prime}_{\ast}$, the ground state phase diagram consists of the following three insulating phases: Band-Insulator at $U<U_{c}$, Ferroelectric Insulator at $U_{c} < U < U_…
We analyze the effects of the on-site Coulomb repulsion U on a band insulator using dynamical mean field theory (DMFT). We find the surprising result that the gap is suppressed to zero at a critical Uc1 and remains zero within a metallic phase. At a larger Uc2 there is a second transition from the metal to a Mott insulator, in which the gap increases with increasing U. These results are qualitatively different from Hartree-Fock theory which gives a monotonically decreasing but non-zero insulating gap for all finite U.
We demonstrate in a simple model the surprising result that turning on an on-site Coulomb interaction U in a doped band insulator leads to the formation of a half-metallic state. In the undoped system, we show that increasing U leads to a first order transition between a paramagnetic, band insulator and an antiferomagnetic Mott insulator at a finite value U_{AF}. Upon doping, the system exhibits half metallic ferrimagnetism over a wide range of doping and interaction strengths on either side of U_{AF}. Our results, based on dynamical mean field theory, suggest a novel route to half-metallic be…
We show that the metal to insulator transition, whether generated by decreasing the electron density or by increasing the spin alignment, is determined by a universal functional form of the two-electron correlation function g(r). This result provides direct evidence of the central role of the Coulomb repulsion and exchange in driving the metal-insulator transition.
Band insulators appear in a crystalline system only when the filling -- the number of electrons per unit cell and spin projection -- is an integer. At fractional filling, an insulating phase that preserves all symmetries is a Mott insulator, i.e. it is either gapless or, if gapped, displays fractionalized excitations and topological order. We raise the inverse question -- at an integer filling is a band insulator always possible? Here we show that lattice symmetries may forbid a band insulator even at certain integer fillings, if the crystal is non-symmorphic -- a property shared by a majority…
We study the transitions from band insulator to metal to Mott insulator in the ionic Hubbard model on a two dimensional square lattice using determinant Quantum Monte Carlo. Evaluation of the temperature dependence of the conductivity demonstrates that the metallic region extends for a finite range of interaction values. The Mott phase at strong coupling is accompanied by antiferromagnetic (AF) order. Inclusion of these intersite correlations changes the phase diagram qualitatively compared to dynamical mean field theory.
Topological insulators have become one of the most active research areas in condensed matter physics. This article reviews progress on the topic of electronic correlations effects in the two-dimensional case, with a focus on systems with intrinsic spin-orbit coupling and numerical results. Topics addressed include an introduction to the noninteracting case, an overview of theoretical models, correlated topological band insulators, interaction-driven phase transitions, topological Mott insulators and fractional topological states, correlation effects on helical edge states, and topological inva…
Experiments demonstrating the controlled growth of oxide heterostructures have raised the prospect of realizing topologically nontrivial states of correlated electrons in low dimensions. Here, we study heterostructures consisting of {111}-bilayers of double perovskites separated by inert band insulators. In bulk, these double perovskites have well-defined local moments interacting with itinerant electrons leading to high temperature ferromagnetism. Incorporating spin-orbit coupling in the two-dimensional honeycomb geometry of a {111}-bilayer, we find a rich phase diagram with tunable ferromagn…
We investigate the low-temperature electrical and thermal transport properties in atomically precise metallic heterostructures involving strongly-correlated electron systems. The model of the Mott-insulator/ band-insulator superlattice was discussed in the framework of the slave-boson mean-field approximation and transport quantities were derived by use of the Boltzmann transport equation in the relaxation-time approximation. The results for the optical conductivity are in good agreement with recently published experimental data on (LaTiO$_3)_N$/(SrTiO$_3)_M$ superlattices and allow us to esti…
We investigate the infinite-dimensional two-orbital Hubbard model at arbitrary band fillings. By means of the self-energy functional approach, we discuss the stability of the metallic state in the systems with same and different bandwidths. It is found that the Mott insulating phases are realized at commensurate band fillings. Furthermore, it is clarified that the orbital selective Mott phase with one orbital localized and the other itinerant is stabilized even at fractional band fillings in the system with different bandwidths.
Non-linear transport of electrons in strong electric fields, as typified by dielectric breakdown, is re-formulated in terms of the ground-state decay rate originally studied by Schwinger in non-linear QED. We discuss the effect of electron interaction on Zener tunneling by comparing the dielectric breakdown of the band insulator and the Mott insulator, where the latter is studied by the time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG). The relation with the Berry's phase theory of polarization is also established.
The electron correlations in narrow energy bands are examined in framework of the Hubbard model. The single-particle Green function and energy spectrum are obtained in paramagnetic state at half-filling by means of new two-pole approximation. In the ground state analitical expressions for the energy gap, polar states concentration and energy of the system are found. Metal-insulator transitions in the model at change of bandwidth or temperature are investigated. The obtained results are used for interpretation of some experimental data in narrow-band materials.
Metal-insulator transitions driven by disorder (Delta) and/or by electron correlations (U) are investigated within the Anderson-Hubbard model with local binary-alloy disorder using a simple but consistent mean-field approach. The Delta-U phase diagram is derived and discussed for T=0 and finite temperatures.
The iterative perturbation theory of the dynamical mean field theory is generalized to arbitrary electron occupation in case of multi-orbital Hubbard bands. We present numerical results of doubly degenerate Eg bands in a simple cubic lattice. The spectrum shows the electron ionization and affinity levels of different electron occupations. For sufficiently large Coulomb integral, a gap opens in the spectrum at integer filling of electrons and the system becomes insulator. The present scheme is easy to combine with the LSDA electronic structure theory.
We show that the interplay of a high density two-dimensional electron gas and localized electrons in a neighboring Mott insulator leads to kinetic magnetism unique to the Mott/band insulator interface. Our study is based upon a bilayer Hubbard model at $U=\infty$ with a potential difference between the two layers. We combine analytic results with DMRG simulations to show that magnetism, and especially ferromagnetism, is greatly enhanced relative by the proximity of the two subsystems. The results are potentially relevant to recent experiments suggesting magnetism in $R$TiO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ hetero…
We present a Qantum Monte Carlo (QMC) study of the temperature dependent dynamics of the Kondo insulator. Working at the so-called symmetrical point allows to perform minus-sign free QMC simulations and thus reach temperatures of less than 1% of the conduction electron bandwidth. Study of the temperature dependence of the single particle Green's function and dynamical spin correlation function shows a surprisingly intricate low temperature band structure and gives evidence for two characteristic temperatures, which we identify with the Kondo and coherence temperature, respectively. In particul…
We study the entanglement spectrum of noninteracting band insulators, which can be computed from the two-point correlation function, when restricted to one part of the system. In particular, we analyze a type of partitioning of the system that maintains its full translational symmetry, by tracing over a subset of local degrees of freedom, such as sublattice sites or spin orientations. The corresponding single-particle entanglement spectrum is the band structure of an entanglement Hamiltonian in the Brillouin zone. We find that the hallmark of a nontrivial topological phase is a gapless entangl…
The organic salt $α$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$I$_3$ is considered a model system for metal-insulator transition due to electronic charge ordering at $T_{\rm CO}=135$~K. The optical properties obtained from polarized reflection measurements above and below $T_{\rm CO}$ can be well described by calculations based on first-principle density-functional theory (DFT). We discuss the effect of electronic correlations on the metal-insulator transition.
We study the influence of short range antiferromagnetic correlations between local $f$-electrons on the transport and thermodynamic properties of Kondo insulators, as first proposed by Coqblin et al. for metallic heavy fermions. The inter-site magnetic correlations produce an effective bandwidth for the $f$-electrons. They are treated on the same footing as the local Kondo correlations such that two energy scales appear in our approach. We discuss the competition between these two scales on the physical properties.
In this paper, based on the mean field approach and random-phase-approximation, we study the magnetic properties of the spinful Haldane model on honeycomb lattice of topological flat band with on-site repulsive Coulomb interaction. We find that the antiferromagnetic (AF) order is more stable than ferromagnetic (FM) order at (or near) half-filling; while away from half-filling the phase diagram becomes complex: At large doping, FM order is more stable than AF order due to the flatness of band structure. In particular, we find that at quarter filling case, the system becomes a Q=1$ topological i…
In the previous papers (Journ. of Phys. Stud. 2, 362 (1998); cond-mat/9811213) we have studied metal-insulator transition in a generalized Hubbard model with correlated hopping at half-filling and zero temperature. The present paper is devoted to a further study of metal-insulator transition in this model,in particular, an investigation of temperature-induced metal-to-insulator transition. The dependence of energy gap on concentration of doubly occupancy leads to increasing energy gap width with increase of temperature. Thus narrow-band system can undergo transition from a metallic state to an…
We investigate a model for a Mott insulator in presence of a time-periodic modulated interaction and a coupling to a thermal reservoir. The combination of drive and dissipation leads to non-equilibrium steady states with a large number of doublon excitations, well above the maximum thermal-equilibrium value. We interpret this effect as an enhancement of local pairing correlations, providing analytical arguments based on a Floquet Hamiltonian. Remarkably, this Hamiltonian shows a tendency to develop long-range staggered superconducting correlations. This suggests the possibility of realizing th…
The 2D metal-insulator transition can be induced either by decreasing the carrier density or by increasing the spin polarization by applying a magnetic field parallel to the plane. Using experimental results for the shift in critical carrier density in an applied field, we show that the two-electron pair correlation function at short distance ($k_Fr\alt2$) has a universal form along the transition line in the magnetic field-carrier density plane. This result provides direct evidence of the central role of Coulomb repulsion and the exchange-correlation hole in driving the metal-insulator transi…
We study the time reversal (T) symmetry breaking of 2d helical fermi liquid, with application to the edge states of 3d topological band insulators with only one two-component Dirac fermion at finite chemical potential, as well as other systems with spin-orbit coupling. The T-breaking Ising order parameter is not over-damped and the theory is different from the ordinary Hertz-Millis theory for order parameters at zero momentum. We argue that the T-breaking phase transition is an 3d Ising transition, and the quasiparticles are well-defined in the quantum critical regime.
Ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy with high temporal and spectral resolutions provides new insight into ultrafast nonequilibrium phenomena. We propose that transient interference between pump and probe pulses is realized in pump-probe spectroscopy of band and Mott insulators, which can be observed only after recent developments of ultrafast spectroscopic techniques. A continuum structure in the excitation spectrum of band insulators is found to act as a medium for storing the spectral information of the pump pulse, and the spectrum detected by the probe pulse is interfered with by the medium, …
We investigate the local moment formation in the half-filled SU($N$) Hubbard model under a staggered ionic potential. As the Hubbard $U$ increases, the charge fluctuations are suppressed and eventually frozen when $U$ is above a critical value $U_c$, marking the development of well-defined local moment with integer $m$ fermions on the A-sublattice and $(N-m)$ fermions on the B-sublattice, respectively. We obtain an analytical solution for $U_c$ for the paramagnetic ground state within the variational Gutzwiller approximation and renormalized mean field theory. For large $N$, $U_c$ is found to …
We derive an effective Hamiltonian $H_{eff}$ for an ionic Hubbard chain, valid for $t\ll U,Δ$, where $t$ is the hopping, $U$ the Coulomb repulsion, and $Δ$ the charge transfer energy. $H_{eff}$ is the minimal model for describing the transition from the band insulator (BI) ($Δ-U\gg t$) and the Mott insulator (MI) ($U-Δ\gg t$). Using spin-particle transformations (Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{86}, 1082 (2001)), we map $H_{eff}(U=Δ)$ into an SU(3) antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model whose exact ground state is known. In this way, we show rigorously that a spontaneously dimerized insulating ferroelect…
We study two models for spinless fermions featuring topologically non-trivial bands characterized by Chern numbers $C=\pm1$ at fractional filling. Using exact diagonalization, we show that, even for infinitely strong nearest-neighbor repulsion, the ground states of these models belong to the recently discovered class of quantum liquids called fractional Chern insulators (FCI). We thus establish that FCI states can arise even if interaction strengths are arbitrarily larger than the noninteracting band gap, going beyond the limits in which FCI states have been previously studied. The strong-coup…
The Mott-Hubbard metal-insulator transition is investigated in a two-band Hubbard model within dynamical mean-field theory. To this end, we use a suitable extension of Wilson's numerical renormalization group for the solution of the effective two-band single-impurity Anderson model. This method is non-perturbative and, in particular, allows to take into account the full exchange part of the Hund's rule coupling between the two orbitals. We discuss in detail the influence of the various Coulomb interactions on thermodynamic and dynamic properties, for both the impurity and the lattice model. Th…
We have investigated the band structure and the band symmetry of mixed-valence insulator SmB$_{6}$ systematically within the density functional theory (DFT). We have analyzed the symmetries and characters of Sm $4f$ and $5d$ bands near the Fermi level ($E_F$) in terms of the non-relativistic real cubic bases as well as the relativistic complex bases incorporating the spin-orbit coupling and the cubic crystal field. Further, we have found that the semi-core band located at $\sim 15$ eV below $E_F$ has the mixed parity and thereby affects the parity eigenvalues of the special ${\bf k}$-points co…
We investigate the Kondo effect in the two-dimensional electron system with a non-trivial quadratic energy band crossing point. We show that the Kondo effect can induce a new hybrid topological insulator phase which is a coexistence state of the quantum anomalous Hall effect and the TRSbroken quantum spin Hall effect. This hybrid topological insulator exhibits not only a quantized charge Hall current but also a net spin current, which are localized at the edge boundaries. This peculiar topological state arises due to the interplay of two marginally relevant operators, i.e., the Kondo-coupling …
We show that a tetragonal lattice of weakly interacting cavities with uniaxial electromagnetic response is the photonic counterpart of topological crystalline insulators, a new topological phase of atomic band insulators. Namely, the frequency band structure stemming from the interaction of resonant modes of the individual cavities exhibits an omnidirectional band gap within which gapless surface states emerge for finite slabs of the lattice. Due to the equivalence of a topological crystalline insulator with its photonic-crystal analog, the frequency band structure of the latter can be charact…
Metallic interfaces between insulating perovskites are often observed in heterostructures combining polar and nonpolar materials. In these systems, the polar discontinuity across the interface may drive an electronic reconstruction inducing free carriers at the interface. Here, we theoretically show that a metallic interface between a Mott- and a band-insulator can also form in the absence of a polar discontinuity. The condition for the appearance of such a metallic state is consistent with the classical Mott criterion: the metallic state is stable if the screening length falls below the effec…
To investigate ferromagnetic semiconductors and insulators, such as the famous EuO, EuS, or CrBr$_3$, we propose a hybridized Kondo-lattice model, where, in addition to the conduction electrons, localized moments (e.g., the $4f$-electrons) are modeled as a strongly correlated band system. The quasi-empty conduction band is weakly filled due to the hybridization term. This activates the intraatomic exchange coupling between conduction and localized electrons. Temperature-dependent phase diagrams and quasiparticle densities of states are presented for various coupling and hybridization strengths…
We show that the topologically nontrivial bands of Chern insulators are adiabatic cousins of the Landau bands of Hofstadter lattices. We demonstrate adiabatic connection also between several familiar fractional quantum Hall states on Hofstadter lattices and the fractional Chern insulator states in partially filled Chern bands, which implies that they are in fact different manifestations of the same phase. This adiabatic path provides a way of generating many more fractional Chern insulator states and helps clarify that nonuniformity in the distribution of the Berry curvature is responsible for…
The Mott metal-insulator transition in the two-band Hubbard model in infinite dimensions is studied by using the linearized dynamical mean-field theory. The discontinuity in the chemical potential for the change from hole to electron doping is calculated analytically as a function of the on-site Coulomb interaction $U$ at the $d$-orbital and the charge-transfer energy $Δ$ between the $d$- and $p$-orbitals. Critical behaviour of the quasiparticle weight is also obtained analytically as a function of $U$ and $Δ$. The analytic results are in good agreement with the numerical results of the exact …
This paper presents numerical studies of the single hole tt't''J model that address the interplay between the kinetic energy of itinerant electrons and the exchange energy of local moments as of interest to doped Mott insulators. Due to this interplay, two different spin correlations coexist around a mobile vacancy. These local correlations provide an effective two-band picture that explains the two-band structure observed in various theoretical and experimental studies, the doping dependence of the momentum space anisotropic pseudogap phenomena and the asymmetry between hole and electron dope…
In this paper, first, we present a general formulation to investigate the ground-state and elementary excitations of an excitonic insulator (EI) in real materials. In addition, we discuss the out-of-equilibrium state induced (albeit transiently) by high-intensity light illumination of a conventional two-dimensional (2D) insulator. We then, present various band-structure models which allow us to study the transition from a conventional insulator to an EI in 2D materials as a function of the dielectric constant, the conventional insulator gap (and chemical potential), the bandwidths of the condu…
A negative differential resistance (NDR) in a one-dimensional band insulator attached to electrodes is investigated. We systematically examine the effects of an electrode bandwidth and a potential distribution inside the insulator on current-voltage characteristics. We show that, in uncorrelated systems, the NDR is generally caused by a linear potential gradient as well as by a finite electrode bandwidth. In particular, the former reduces the effective bandwidth of the insulator for elastic tunneling by tilting its energy band, so that it brings about the NDR even in the limit of large electro…
Based on the Phase Hamiltonian, two types of solitons are found to exist in the crossover region between band insulator and Mott insulator in one-dimension. Both of these solitons have fractional charges but with different spins, zero and 1/2, respectively. The results are in accord with the experimental results by Kanoda et al. for TTF-Chloranil under pressure.
We study a model of an equal mixture of two species of fermions in a deep optical lattice at a filling of two fermions per site. At weak inter-species interaction, the system is a band insulator. When the inter-species interaction is tuned via a Feshbach resonance to be larger than an energy related to the energy separation of the first and second Bloch band, atoms populate equally the two Bloch bands. With weak tunneling between sites of the optical lattice, the system becomes a Mott insulator with the low energy effective Hamiltonian of a spin-1 Heisenberg antiferromagnet, because of a Hund'…
To study digital Mott insulator LaTiO3 and band insulator SrTiO3 interfaces, we apply correlated band theory (LDA+U) to (n,m) multilayers, 1<n,m<9. If the on-site repulsion on Ti is large enough to model the magnetic insulating behavior of cubic bulk LaTiO3, the charge imbalance at the interface is found in all cases to be accommodated by disproportionation (Ti4+ + Ti3+), charge ordering, and Ti3+ d_xy-orbital ordering, with antiferromagnetic exchange coupling between the spins in the interface layer. Lattice relaxation affects the conduction behavior by shifting (slightly but importantly) the…
