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Title: Electronic structure of negative charge transfer CaFeO3 across the metal-insulator transition

Journal Article · · Physical Review Materials
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [1];  [6];  [2];  [5]; ORCiD logo [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [2];  [1]
  1. Drexel Univ., Philadelphia, PA (United States)
  2. Temple Univ., Philadelphia, PA (United States)
  3. Czech Technical Univ., Prague (Czech Republic)
  4. Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC (Canada); Univ. of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK (Canada)
  5. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  6. Drexel Univ., Philadelphia, PA (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  7. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  8. Diamond Light Source, Ltd., Didcot, Oxfordshire (United Kingdom)
  9. Peter-Grunberg-Institut, Jülich (Germany); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  10. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)

In this work, we investigated the metal-insulator transition for epitaxial thin films of the perovskite CaFeO3, a material with a significant oxygen ligand hole contribution to its electronic structure. We find that biaxial tensile and compressive strain suppress the metal-insulator transition temperature. By combining hard x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy, and density functional calculations, we resolve the element-specific changes to the electronic structure across the metal-insulator transition. We demonstrate that the Fe sites undergo no observable spectroscopic change between the metallic and insulating states, whereas the O electronic configuration undergoes significant changes. This strongly supports the bond-disproportionation model of the metal-insulator transition for CaFeO3 and highlights the importance of ligand holes in its electronic structure. By sensitively measuring the ligand hole density, however, we find that it increases by ~5–10% in the insulating state, which we ascribe to a further localization of electron charge on the Fe sites. Finally, these results provide detailed insight into the metal-insulator transition of negative charge transfer compounds and should prove instructive for understanding metal-insulator transitions in other late transition metal compounds such as the nickelates.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1558569
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1418712
Journal Information:
Physical Review Materials, Vol. 2, Issue 1; ISSN 2475-9953
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 27 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (3)

Depth‐Resolved Modulation of Metal–Oxygen Hybridization and Orbital Polarization across Correlated Oxide Interfaces journal September 2019
A computational study of hydrogen doping induced metal-to-insulator transition in CaFeO 3 , SrFeO 3 , BaFeO 3 and SmMnO 3 journal January 2019
Itinerancy-dependent noncollinear spin textures in SrFeO 3 ,   CaFeO 3 , and CaFeO 3 / SrFeO 3 heterostructures probed via resonant x-ray scattering journal August 2019

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