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Title: Spatial inhomogeneity and the metal-insulator transition in Ca 3 ( Ru 1 x Ti x ) 2 O 7

Abstract

Turning a pristine Mott insulator into a correlated metal by chemical doping is a common procedure in strongly correlated materials physics, e.g., underlying the phenomenology of high-Tc cuprates. The ruthenate bilayer compound Ca3Ru2O7 is a prominent example of a reversed case, namely, a correlated metal at stoichiometry that realizes a transition into an insulating state via Ti doping. We here investigate this puzzling metal-insulator transition (MIT) by first-principles many-body theory and elucidate a challenging interplay between electronic correlations and symmetry breaking on the Ru sublattice. While average effects on the Ca3Ru2O7 crystal structure are still relevant, the key to the MIT is the cooperation of electronic correlations with the spatial inhomogeneity in the defect regime. Together they give rise to the emergence of site-selective Mott criticality and competing orbital-ordering tendencies.

Authors:
ORCiD logo; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division
OSTI Identifier:
1665899
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1664396
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0018218
Resource Type:
Published Article
Journal Name:
Physical Review Research
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Physical Review Research Journal Volume: 2 Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 2643-1564
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; Metal-insulator transition; Ruthenates; Electron-correlation calculations

Citation Formats

Lechermann, Frank, Han, Qiang, and Millis, Andrew J. Spatial inhomogeneity and the metal-insulator transition in Ca 3 ( Ru 1 − x Ti x ) 2 O 7. United States: N. p., 2020. Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.033490.
Lechermann, Frank, Han, Qiang, & Millis, Andrew J. Spatial inhomogeneity and the metal-insulator transition in Ca 3 ( Ru 1 − x Ti x ) 2 O 7. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.033490
Lechermann, Frank, Han, Qiang, and Millis, Andrew J. Thu . "Spatial inhomogeneity and the metal-insulator transition in Ca 3 ( Ru 1 − x Ti x ) 2 O 7". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.033490.
@article{osti_1665899,
title = {Spatial inhomogeneity and the metal-insulator transition in Ca 3 ( Ru 1 − x Ti x ) 2 O 7},
author = {Lechermann, Frank and Han, Qiang and Millis, Andrew J.},
abstractNote = {Turning a pristine Mott insulator into a correlated metal by chemical doping is a common procedure in strongly correlated materials physics, e.g., underlying the phenomenology of high-Tc cuprates. The ruthenate bilayer compound Ca3Ru2O7 is a prominent example of a reversed case, namely, a correlated metal at stoichiometry that realizes a transition into an insulating state via Ti doping. We here investigate this puzzling metal-insulator transition (MIT) by first-principles many-body theory and elucidate a challenging interplay between electronic correlations and symmetry breaking on the Ru sublattice. While average effects on the Ca3Ru2O7 crystal structure are still relevant, the key to the MIT is the cooperation of electronic correlations with the spatial inhomogeneity in the defect regime. Together they give rise to the emergence of site-selective Mott criticality and competing orbital-ordering tendencies.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.033490},
journal = {Physical Review Research},
number = 3,
volume = 2,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Sep 24 00:00:00 EDT 2020},
month = {Thu Sep 24 00:00:00 EDT 2020}
}

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