Avoided metallicity in a hole-doped Mott insulator on a triangular lattice
Doping of a Mott insulator gives rise to a wide variety of exotic emergent states, from high-temperature superconductivity to charge, spin, and orbital orders. The physics underpinning their evolution is, however, poorly understood. A major challenge is the chemical complexity associated with traditional routes to doping. Here, we study the Mott insulating CrO<sub>2</sub> layer of the delafossite PdCrO<sub>2</sub>, where an intrinsic polar catastrophe provides a clean route to doping of the surface. From scanning tunnelling microscopy and angle-resolved photoemission, we find that the surface stays insulating accompanied by a short-range ordered state. From density functional theory, we demonstrate how the formation of charge disproportionation results in an insulating ground state of the surface that is disparate from the hidden Mott insulator in the bulk. We demonstrate that voltage pulses induce local modifications to this state which relax over tens of minutes, pointing to a glassy nature of the charge order.
Authors
- Philip A. E. Murgatroyd (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5184-7218)
- A. P. Mackenzie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8000-4949)
- Izidor Benedičič (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4841-9495)
- P. D. C. King (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6523-9034)
- Srdjan Stavrić (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2097-0955)
- Tommaso Antonelli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4990-7813)
- Chi Ming Yim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3339-4571)
- Seunghyun Khim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9495-7406)
- Matthew D. Watson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0737-2814)
- Gesa-R. Siemann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0029-5059)
- Peter Wahl (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8635-1519)
- Silvia Picozzi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3232-788X)
Institutions
- University of Bonn (DE)
- University of St Andrews (GB)
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN)
- Diamond Light Source (GB)
- University of Belgrade (RS)
- Superconducting and other Innovative Materials and Devices Institute (IT)
- Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids (DE)
- Consorzio Roma Ricerche (IT)
- Institute of Physics Belgrade (RS)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2024-09-16
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52007-z
- Citations
- 6
- Primary Topic
- Electronic and Structural Properties of Oxides
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.70
Funders
- Diamond Light Source
- Leverhulme Trust
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council