The effective Mott gap measured by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) in the lightly doped Mott insulator $(\rm{Sr}_{1 -x}\rm{La}_x)_2\rm{IrO}_4$ differs greatly from values reported by photoemission and optical experiments. Here, we show that this is a consequence of the poor electronic screening of the tip-induced electric field in this material. Such effects are well known from STM experiments on semiconductors, and go under the name of tip-induced band bending (TIBB). We show that this phenomenon also exists in the lightly doped Mott insulator $(\rm{Sr}_{1 -x}\rm{La}_x)_2\rm{IrO}_4$ and that, at doping concentrations of $x\leq 4 \%$, it causes the measured energy gap in the sample density of states to be bigger than the one measured with other techniques. We develop a model able to retrieve the intrinsic energy gap leading to a value which is in rough agreement with other experiments, bridging the apparent contradiction. At doping $x \approx 5 \%$ we further observe circular features in the conductance layers that point to the emergence of a significant density of free carriers in this doping range, and to the presence of a small concentration of donor atoms. We illustrate the importance of considering the presence of TIBB when doing STM experiments on correlated-electron systems and discuss the similarities and differences between STM measurements on semiconductors and lightly doped Mott insulators.
High temperature superconductivity in cuprates is realized by doping the Mott insulator with charge carriers. A central issue is how such an insulating state can evolve into a conducting or superconducting state when charge carriers are introduced. Here, by in situ vacuum annealing and Rb deposition on the Bi2Sr2Ca0.6Dy0.4Cu2O8+delta (Bi2212) sample surface to push its doping level continuously from deeply underdoped (Tc=25 K, doping level p-0.066) to the near zero doping parent Mott insulator, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements are carried out to observe the detailed elect…
It is widely believed that high-temperature superconductivity in the cuprates emerges from doped Mott insulators. The physics of the parent state seems deceivingly simple: The hopping of the electrons from site to site is prohibited because their on-site Coulomb repulsion U is larger than the kinetic energy gain t. When doping these materials by inserting a small percentage of extra carriers, the electrons become mobile but the strong correlations from the Mott state are thought to survive; inhomogeneous electronic order, a mysterious pseudogap and, eventually, superconductivity appear. How th…
Magnetic properties of lightly doped antiferromagnetic YBa$_{2}$Cu$_{3}$O$_{y}$
本工作解决YBa $_{2}$ Cu $_{3}$ O $_{y}$在掺杂低于x=6%，其中该化合物是共线反铁磁体。在该区域中，YBa $_{2}$ Cu $_{3}$ O $_{y}$是在零温度下具有有限电阻率的正常导体。零温时的交错磁化强度为0.6μ B，这是自旋量子涨落所允许的最大值。交错磁化几乎与掺杂无关。另一方面，Neel温度从x=0时的T_N=420K迅速衰减到x = 0.06时的几乎为零。本文解释了这些显着的性能，并表明，从物理的轻掺杂莫特绝缘体与小孔口袋的属性结果。核四极共振数据进行了讨论。这些数据揭示了x <6%时反铁磁有序稳定性的机制。
An influence of the localization of itinerant electrons induced by correlated hopping on the electronic charge and heat transport is discussed for the lightly doped Mott insulator phase of the Falicov-Kimball model. The case of strongly reduced hopping amplitude between the sites with occupied f-electron levels, when an additional band of localized d-electron states could appear on the DOS in the Mott gap, is considered. Due to the electron-hole asymmetry and anomalous features on the DOS and transport function induced by correlated hopping, a strong enhancement of the Seebeck coefficient is o…
Two-channel physics in a lightly doped antiferromagnetic Mott insulator revealed by two-hole spectroscopy
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München（慕尼黑路德维希-马克西米利安大学）；Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics (ASC)（阿诺德·索末菲理论物理中心）；Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST)（慕尼黑量子科学与技术中心）；University of Colorado, Boulder（科罗拉多大学博尔德分校）；Center for Theory of Quantum Matter, University of Colorado, Boulder（科罗拉多大学博尔德分校量子物质理论中心）
Copper oxide high temperature superconductors universally exhibit multiple forms of electronically ordered phases that break the native translational symmetry of the CuO2 planes. The interplay between these orders and the superconducting ground state, as well as how they arise through doping a Mott insulator, is essential to decode the mechanisms of high-temperature superconductivity. Over the years, various forms of electronic liquid crystal phases including charge/spin stripes and incommensurate charge-density-waves (CDWs) were found to emerge out of a correlated metallic ground state in und…
Correlated Dirac semimetal phases emerge in lightly doped (Tb- or La-doped) Mott insulator Sr$_2$IrO$_4$, where a d-wave symmetry-breaking order underlying a pseudogap plays a crucial role in determining the nature of Dirac degeneracy, i.e., whether it is a Dirac line node or Dirac point node. Here, using a realistic five-orbital tight-binding model with a Hubbard U and a semiclassical Boltzmann transport theory, we systematically study the low-energy electrodynamic properties of the Dirac semimetal phases in the paramagnetic lightly doped Sr$_2$IrO$_4$. We investigate the effects of the d-wav…
The motion of doped electrons or holes in an antiferromagnetic lattice with strong on-site Coulomb interactions touches one of the most fundamental open problems in contemporary condensed matter physics. The doped charge may strongly couple to elementary spin excitations resulting in a dressed quasiparticle which is subject to confinement. This 'spin-polaron' possesses internal degrees of freedom with a characteristic 'ladder' excitation spectrum. Despite its fundamental importance for understanding high-temperature superconductivity, clear experimental spectroscopic signatures of these intern…
A spatial interpretation of emerging superconductivity in lightly doped cuprates
最近由Kohleman等人通过扫描隧道显微镜观察到的包括交替的“空穴丰富”和“空穴贫乏”阶梯的域的形成，轻孔掺杂的铜酸盐，被解释在一个有吸引力的机制，有利于存在掺杂的孔位于每个氧原子的一侧上的Cu网站。这种机制导致交替的空穴丰富和空穴贫乏的阶梯的几何图案的周期性等于4倍的晶格间距在CuO平面中，如实验观察到的。引用这篇文章：G. Deutscher，P. G. de Gennes，C. R. Physique 8（2007）.
Small-polaron coherent conduction in lightly doped ReTiO$_{3+ δ/2}$ (Re=La or Nd) thin films prepared by Pulsed Laser Deposition
采用脉冲激光沉积技术在（100）SrTiO $_{3}$和（100）LaAlO $_{3}$单晶衬底上外延生长了LaTiO $_{3+δ/2}$、NdTiO $_{3+δ/2}$和Nd $_{1-x}$ Sr $_{x}$ TiO $_{3+δ/2}$薄膜。在沉积过程中的氧气压力已被仔细控制，以确保薄膜是轻掺杂的金属侧附近的金属-莫特-绝缘体边界。在低温下的有效载流子数的急剧下降已被观察到在一些薄膜，这可能对应于自旋密度波（SDW）的间隙，由于反铁磁自旋波动逐渐开放。在升高的温度下，也可以清楚地观察到霍尔系数的热致降低。尽管这些薄膜是由不同的材料在不同的沉积条件下制备的，但它们的电阻的温度依赖性几乎都可以用小极化子相干导电模型（$R_s(T)=R_s(0)+Cω_α/\sinh^2(T_ω/T)$）完美地拟合。对拟合参数的仔细研究表明，耦合到电子的声子的频率可能部分地与衬底失配应变引起的晶格畸变有关。
A Dirac fermion emerges as a result of interplay between symmetry and topology in condensed matter. Current research moves towards investigating the Dirac fermions in the presence of manybody effects in correlated system. Here, we demonstrate the emergence of correlation-induced symmetry-protected Dirac semimetal state in the lightly-doped spin-orbit-coupled Mott insulator Sr$_2$IrO$_4$. We find that the nonsymmorphic crystalline symmetry stabilizes a Dirac line-node semimetal and that the correlation-induced symmetry-breaking electronic order further leads to a phase transition from the Dirac…
Understanding the nature of charge carriers in doped Mott insulators holds the key to unravelling puzzling properties of strongly correlated electron systems, including cuprate superconductors. Several theoretical models suggested that dopants can be understood as bound states of partons, the analogues of quarks in high-energy physics. However, direct signatures of spinon-chargon bound states are lacking, both in experiment and theory. Here we numerically identify long-lived rotational resonances at low doping, which directly reveal the microscopic structure of spinon-chargon bound states. Sim…
Employing Nernst-Einstein decomposition $σ=e^2χ_c D$ of the conductivity $σ$ onto charge susceptibility (compressibility) $χ_c$ and diffusion constant $D$, we argue that the bad-metallic behavior of $σ$ in the regime of high temperatures and lightly doped insulator is dominated by the strong temperature and doping dependence of $χ_c$. In particular, we show how at small dopings $χ_c$ strongly decreases towards undoped-insulating values with increasing temperature and discuss simple picture leading to the linear-in-temperature resistivity with the prefactor increasing inversely with decreasing …
Recent realization of well-controlled quantum simulators of the triangular-lattice Fermi-Hubbard model, including the triangular optical lattices loaded with ultracold Fermions and the heterostructures of the transition-metal dichalcogenides, as well as the more advanced techniques to probe them, pave the way for studying frustrated Fermi-Hubbard physics. Here, we theoretically predict asymmetric photoemission and tunneling spectroscopies for a lightly hole-doped and electron-doped triangular Mott antiferromagnet, and reveal two distinct types of magnetic polarons: a \emph{lightly} renormalize…
Persistent Fermi Pockets and Robust Electron Pairing in Lightly Doped CuO$_2$ Planes of Cuprate Superconductors
Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所凝聚态物理国家实验室）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research（马克斯·普朗克固体研究研究所）；Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院理化技术研究所）；Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory（松山湖材料实验室）；Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences（北京量子信息科学研究院）
Despite many efforts to rationalize the strongly correlated electronic ground states in doped Mott insulators, the nature of the doping induced insulator to metal transition is still a subject under intensive investigation. Here we probe the nanoscale electronic structure of the Mott insulator Sr$_2$IrO$_{4-δ}$ with low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and find enhanced local density of states (LDOS) inside the Mott gap at the location of individual apical oxygen site defects. We visualize paths of enhanced conductance arising from the overlapping of defect states which induces finite…
We investigate the double layered Sr$_{3}$(Ru$_{1-x}$Mn$_{x}$)$_{2}$O$_{7}$ and its doping-induced quantum phase transition (QPT) from a metal to an antiferromagnetic (AFM) Mott insulator. Using spectroscopic imaging with the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), we visualize the evolution of the electronic states in real- and momentum-space. We find a partial-gap in the tunneling density of states at the Fermi energy (E$_{F}$) that develops with doping to form a weak Mott insulating (Δ ~ 100meV) state. Near the QPT, we discover a spatial electronic reorganization into a commensurate checkerboa…
Surface effects on the Mott-Hubbard transition in archetypal V$_2$O$_3$
我们提出了一个实验和理论研究探索模型Mott-Hubbard化合物Cr掺杂V $_2$ O $_3$的金属-绝缘体转变的演变的表面效应。我们发现一个微观域的形成，这显然是由表面晶体取向的影响。使用扫描光电子显微镜和X射线衍射，我们发现，表面缺陷作为形核中心的域的形成在温度诱导的同构转变，有利于形成微观金属区域。一个密度泛函理论加上动力学平均场论研究不同的表面终端表明，表面重建与过量的钒基阳离子导致掺杂，因此更多的金属表面状态，解释我们的实验观察。
Fermi-liquid-like phase driven by next-nearest-neighbor couplings in a lightly doped kagome-lattice $t$-$J$ model
School of Physics, Beihang University（北京航空航天大学物理学院）；School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology（北京理工大学物理学院）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, California State University Northridge（加州州立大学北岭分校物理与天文学系）；School of Physical Sciences, Great Bay University（大湾区大学物理科学学院）；Great Bay Institute for Advanced Study（大湾区高等研究院）
We report the evolution of the $k$-space electronic structure of lightly doped bulk Ca$_{2}$RuO$_{4}$ with uniaxial strain. Using ultrathin plate-like crystals, we achieve strain levels up to $-4.1\%$, sufficient to suppress the Mott phase and access the previously unexplored metallic state at low temperature. Angle-resolved photoemission experiments performed while tuning the uniaxial strain reveal that metallicity emerges from a marked redistribution of charge within the Ru $t_{2g}$ shell, accompanied by a sudden collapse of the spectral weight in the lower Hubbard band and the emergence of …
In this paper, we report on scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (STM/STS) measurements on iron doped 1$T$-Ta$_{1-x}$Fe$_x$S$_2$. A novel domain structure composed of the domains with localized nature divided by the walls is observed in Ta$_{0.99}$Fe$_{0.01}$S$_2$, where the Mott transition is completely suppressed. This indicates that the melting of the Mott state accompanies the appearance of the domain structure. Since the number of walls increase in superconducting Ta$_{0.98}$Fe$_{0.02}$S$_2$, the domain walls seem to be responsible for superconductivity in iron doped 1$T$-TaS$_2…
Domain walls in interacting electronic systems can have distinct localized states, which often govern physical properties and may lead to unprecedented functionalities and novel devices. However, electronic states within domain walls themselves have not been clearly identified and understood for strongly correlated electron systems. Here, we resolve the electronic states localized on domain walls in a Mott-charge-density-wave(CDW) insulator 1T-TaS2 using scanning tunneling spectroscopy. We establish that the domain wall state decomposes into two nonconducting states located at the center of do…
Realization of a Wigner-Mott insulator in 6R-TaS$_2$ superconductor
Beijing National Center for Condensed Matter Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所（北京凝聚态物理国家研究中心））；School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学物理科学学院）；Hefei National Laboratory（合肥国家实验室）；Department of Physics, Boston College（波士顿学院物理系）
Electric pulse induced electronic patchwork in the Mott insulator GaTa$_{4}$Se$_{8}$
继最近发现的绝缘体到金属的转变由电场诱导的GaTa $_{4}$ Se $_{8}$，我们进行了详细的扫描隧道显微镜/光谱研究的原始（绝缘）和过渡（导电）晶体的这种窄间隙莫特绝缘体。光谱图表明，原始样品是空间均匀的绝缘体，而过渡样品揭示了在纳米尺度上的复杂的电子图案，由金属和超绝缘补丁沉浸在原始绝缘矩阵。令人惊讶的是，这两种补丁都伴随着强烈的局部地形膨胀，从而证明了在这种金属-绝缘体过渡中涉及的强电子-晶格耦合。最后，利用一个强大的电场产生的STM隧道结，我们证明了可能性，即使在室温下，局部的金属-绝缘体转变。
