Atomic-scale fragmentation and collapse of antiferromagnetic order in a doped Mott insulator

Zhao, He; Manna, Sujit; Porter, Zach; Chen, Xiang; Uzdejczyk, Andrew; Moodera, Jagadeesh; Wang, Ziqiang; Wilson, Stephen D.; Zeljkovic, Ilija

doi:10.1038/s41567-019-0671-9

Title: Atomic-scale fragmentation and collapse of antiferromagnetic order in a doped Mott insulator

Journal Article · 07 October 2019 · Nature Physics

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0671-9 · OSTI ID:1597877

Zhao, He ^[1]; Manna, Sujit ^[2];

^[3];

^[3]; Uzdejczyk, Andrew ^[1]; Moodera, Jagadeesh ^[4]; Wang, Ziqiang ^[1];

^[3];

^[1]

Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA (United States)
Indian Inst. of Technology (IIT), New Delhi (India); Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)

Disentangling the relationship between the insulating state with a charge gap and the magnetic order in an antiferromagnetic Mott insulator remains difficult due to inherent phase separation as the Mott state is perturbed. Measuring magnetic and electronic properties at atomic length scales would provide crucial insight, yet this is yet to be experimentally achieved. Here, we use spin-polarized scanning tunnelling microscopy (SP-STM) to visualize the periodic spin-resolved modulations originating from the antiferromagnetic order in a relativistic Mott insulator Sr₂IrO₄, and how they change as a function of doping. We find that near the insulator-to-metal transition (IMT), the long-range antiferromagnetic order melts into a fragmented state with short-range correlations. Crucially, we discover that the short-range antiferromagnetic order is locally uncorrelated with the observed spectral gap magnitude. This indicates that static short-range antiferromagnetic correlations are unlikely to be the cause of the inhomogeneous closing of the spectral gap and the emergence of pseudogap regions near the IMT. Our work establishes SP-STM as a powerful tool for revealing atomic-scale magnetic information in complex oxides.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Cite

Export

Save

Research Organization:: Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Army Research Office (ARO); National Science Foundation (NSF); US Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR); John Templeton Foundation

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0020130; W911NF-17-1-0399; DMR-1654041; FG02-99ER45747; N00014-16-1-2657; DMR-1700137; DMR-1905801; W911NF-16-1-0361

OSTI ID:: 1597877

Journal Information:: Nature Physics, Vol. 15, Issue 12; ISSN 1745-2473

Publisher:: Nature Publishing Group (NPG)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 19 works

Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (46)

Reading and writing single-atom magnets Natterer, Fabian D.; Yang, Kai; Paul, William Nature, Vol. 543, Issue 7644 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature21371	journal	March 2017
Metal-insulator transitions Paesler, Michael Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, Vol. 130, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-3093(91)90162-y	journal	June 1991
Spin-Orbit Physics Giving Rise to Novel Phases in Correlated Systems: Iridates and Related Materials Rau, Jeffrey G.; Lee, Eric Kin-Ho; Kee, Hae-Young Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, Vol. 7, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-conmatphys-031115-011319	journal	March 2016
Distinguishing a Majorana zero mode using spin-resolved measurements Jeon, Sangjun; Xie, Yonglong; Li, Jian Science, Vol. 358, Issue 6364 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan3670	journal	October 2017
Novel J eff = 1 / 2 Mott State Induced by Relativistic Spin-Orbit Coupling in Sr 2 IrO 4 Kim, B. J.; Jin, Hosub; Moon, S. J. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 101, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.076402	journal	August 2008
Lattice-driven magnetoresistivity and metal-insulator transition in single-layered iridates Ge, M.; Qi, T. F.; Korneta, O. B. Physical Review B, Vol. 84, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.84.100402	journal	September 2011
Etching of Cr tips for scanning tunneling microscopy of cleavable oxides Huang, Dennis; Liu, Stephen; Zeljkovic, Ilija Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 88, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4976567	journal	February 2017
Magnetic and crystal structures of Sr 2 IrO 4 : A neutron diffraction study Ye, Feng; Chi, Songxue; Chakoumakos, Bryan C. Physical Review B, Vol. 87, Issue 14 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.87.140406	journal	April 2013
Reading and writing single-atom magnets Natterer, Fabian D.; Yang, Kai; Paul, William Nature Publishing Group https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-136418	text	January 2017
Interfacial superconductivity in a bi-collinear antiferromagnetically ordered FeTe monolayer on a topological insulator Manna, S.; Kamlapure, A.; Cornils, L. Nature Communications, Vol. 8, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14074	journal	January 2017
Metal-insulator transitions Imada, Masatoshi; Fujimori, Atsushi; Tokura, Yoshinori Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 70, Issue 4, p. 1039-1263 https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.70.1039	journal	October 1998
Evidence of an odd-parity hidden order in a spin–orbit coupled correlated iridate Zhao, L.; Torchinsky, D. H.; Chu, H. Nature Physics, Vol. 12, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3517	journal	October 2015
Magnetic Excitation Spectra of Sr 2 IrO 4 Probed by Resonant Inelastic X-Ray Scattering: Establishing Links to Cuprate Superconductors Kim, Jungho; Casa, D.; Upton, M. H. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 108, Issue 17 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.177003	journal	April 2012
Scalable radiative thermal logic gates based on nanoparticle networks Kathmann, Christoph; Reina, Marta; Messina, Riccardo Scientific Reports, Vol. 10, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-60603-4	journal	February 2020
Charge-stripe crystal phase in an insulating cuprate Zhao, He; Ren, Zheng; Rachmilowitz, Bryan Nature Materials, Vol. 18, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0243-x	journal	December 2018
Hallmarks of the Mott-metal crossover in the hole-doped pseudospin-1/2 Mott insulator Sr2IrO4 Cao, Yue; Wang, Qiang; Waugh, Justin A. Nature Communications, Vol. 7, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11367	journal	April 2016
Universality of pseudogap and emergent order in lightly doped Mott insulators Battisti, I.; Bastiaans, K. M.; Fedoseev, V. Nature Physics, Vol. 13, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3894	journal	September 2016
Spin mapping at the nanoscale and atomic scale Wiesendanger, Roland Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 81, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.81.1495	journal	November 2009
Pseudogap induced by short-range spin correlations in a doped Mott insulator Kyung, B.; Kancharla, S. S.; Sénéchal, D. Physical Review B, Vol. 73, Issue 16 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.73.165114	journal	April 2006
Phase separation in the t - J model Emery, V. J.; Kivelson, S. A.; Lin, H. Q. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 64, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.64.475	journal	January 1990
Validity and limitations of the superexchange model for the magnetic properties of Sr 2 IrO 4 and Ba 2 IrO 4 mediated by the strong spin-orbit coupling Solovyev, I. V.; Mazurenko, V. V.; Katanin, A. A. Physical Review B, Vol. 92, Issue 23 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.92.235109	journal	December 2015
Spin-polaron ladder spectrum of the spin-orbit-induced Mott insulator Sr 2 IrO 4 probed by scanning tunneling spectroscopy Guevara, Jose M.; Sun, Zhixiang; Pärschke, Ekaterina M. Physical Review B, Vol. 99, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.99.121114	journal	March 2019
Collapse of the Mott Gap and Emergence of a Nodal Liquid in Lightly Doped Sr 2 IrO 4 de la Torre, A.; McKeown Walker, S.; Bruno, F. Y. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 115, Issue 17 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.176402	journal	October 2015
Real-space imaging of the atomic-scale magnetic structure of Fe1+yTe Enayat, M.; Sun, Z.; Singh, U. R. Science, Vol. 345, Issue 6197 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1251682	journal	July 2014
The challenge of spin–orbit-tuned ground states in iridates: a key issues review Cao, Gang; Schlottmann, Pedro Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 81, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/aaa979	journal	February 2018
Fermi arcs in a doped pseudospin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet Kim, Y. K.; Krupin, O.; Denlinger, J. D. Science, Vol. 345, Issue 6193 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1251151	journal	June 2014
Twisted Hubbard Model for Sr 2 IrO 4 : Magnetism and Possible High Temperature Superconductivity Wang, Fa; Senthil, T. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.136402	journal	March 2011
Doping a Mott insulator: Physics of high-temperature superconductivity Lee, Patrick A.; Nagaosa, Naoto; Wen, Xiao-Gang Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 78, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.78.17	journal	January 2006
Observation of a d-wave gap in electron-doped Sr2IrO4 Kim, Y. K.; Sung, N. H.; Denlinger, J. D. Nature Physics, Vol. 12, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3503	journal	October 2015
Mott Transition in VO2 Revealed by Infrared Spectroscopy and Nano-Imaging Qazilbash, M. M.; Brehm, M.; Chae, B. -G. Science, Vol. 318, Issue 5857 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1150124	journal	December 2007
Spin Coupling in Engineered Atomic Structures Hirjibehedin, C. F. Science, Vol. 312, Issue 5776 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1125398	journal	May 2006
Visualizing the evolution from the Mott insulator to a charge-ordered insulator in lightly doped cuprates Cai, Peng; Ruan, Wei; Peng, Yingying Nature Physics, Vol. 12, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3840	journal	August 2016
Influence of electron doping on the ground state of ( Sr 1 − x La x ) 2 IrO 4 Chen, Xiang; Hogan, Tom; Walkup, D. Physical Review B, Vol. 92, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.92.075125	journal	August 2015
Unidirectional spin density wave state in metallic (Sr1−xLax)2IrO4 Chen, Xiang; Schmehr, Julian L.; Islam, Zahirul Nature Communications, Vol. 9, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-02647-1	journal	January 2018
Intra-unit-cell electronic nematicity of the high-Tc copper-oxide pseudogap states Lawler, M. J.; Fujita, K.; Lee, Jhinhwan Nature, Vol. 466, Issue 7304 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09169	journal	July 2010
The Basis of the Electron Theory of Metals, with Special Reference to the Transition Metals Mott, N. F. Proceedings of the Physical Society. Section A, Vol. 62, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1088/0370-1298/62/7/303	journal	July 1949
Mott transition in VO2 revealed by infrared spectroscopy and nano-imaging Qazilbash, M. M.; Brehm, M.; Chae, Byung-Gyu arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.0801.1171	text	January 2008
Etching of Cr tips for scanning tunneling microscopy of cleavable oxides Huang, Dennis; Liu, Stephen; Zeljkovic, Ilija arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1310.6733	text	January 2013
Observation of a $d$-wave gap in electron-doped Sr$_2$IrO$_4$ Kim, Y. K.; Sung, N. H.; Denlinger, J. D. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1506.06639	text	January 2015
Spin-Orbit Physics Giving Rise to Novel Phases in Correlated Systems: Iridates and Related Materials Rau, Jeffrey G.; Lee, Eric Kin-Ho; Kee, Hae-Young arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1507.06323	text	January 2015
Validity and limitations of the superexchange model for the magnetic properties of Sr2IrO4 and Ba2IrO4 mediated by the strong spin-orbit coupling Solovyev, I. V.; Mazurenko, V. V.; Katanin, A. A. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1508.06733	text	January 2015
Universality of pseudogap and emergent order in lightly doped Mott insulators Battisti, Irene; Bastiaans, Koen M.; Fedoseev, Vitaly arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1604.08343	text	January 2016
Evidence for interfacial superconductivity in a bi-collinear antiferromagnetically ordered FeTe monolayer on a topological insulator Manna, Sujit; Kamlapure, Anand; Cornils, Lasse arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1606.03249	text	January 2016
Distinguishing a Majorana zero mode using spin resolved measurements Jeon, Sangjun; Xie, Yonglong; Li, Jian arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1710.04662	text	January 2017
Mott Transition in VO2 Revealed by Infrared Spectroscopy and Nano-Imaging Qazilbash, M. M.; Brehm, M.; Chae, B. -G. Science, Vol. 318, Issue 5857 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1150124	journal	December 2007
Bistability in Atomic-Scale Antiferromagnets Loth, S.; Baumann, S.; Lutz, C. P. Science, Vol. 335, Issue 6065 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1214131	journal	January 2012

Similar Records

Light-induced insulator–metal transition in Sr₂IrO₄ reveals the nature of the insulating ground state

Journal Article · 2024 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · OSTI ID:2446937

Choi, Dongsung; Yue, Changming; Azoury, Doron; +11 more

Magnetic order driven ultrafast phase transition in NdNiO3

Journal Article · 2022 · Physical Review. B · OSTI ID:2406958

Stoica, V. A.; Puggioni, D.; Zhang, J.; +12 more

Superconducting proximity effect in a topological insulator using Fe(Te, Se)

Journal Article · 2018 · Physical Review B · OSTI ID:1462410

Zhao, He; Rachmilowitz, Bryan; Ren, Zheng; +6 more

Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS

Title: Atomic-scale fragmentation and collapse of antiferromagnetic order in a doped Mott insulator

Citation Formats

References (46)

Similar Records

Related Subjects