Mott Transition in VO2 Revealed by Infrared Spectroscopy and Nano-Imaging

By M. M. Qazilbash, M. Brehm, B. Chae, P. Ho, G. Andreev, B. Kim, S. Yun, Alexander V. Balatsky, M. Maple, F. Keilmann and 2 more. Science, 2007

1,368 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Electrons in correlated insulators are prevented from conducting by Coulomb repulsion between them. When an insulator-to-metal transition is induced in a correlated insulator by doping or heating, the resulting conducting state can be radically different from that characterized by free electrons in conventional metals. We report on the electronic properties of a prototypical correlated insulator vanadium dioxide in which the metallic state can be induced by increasing temperature. Scanning near-field infrared microscopy allows us to directly image nanoscale metallic puddles that appear at the onset of the insulator-to-metal transition. In combination with far-field infrared spectroscopy, the data reveal the Mott transition with divergent quasi-particle mass in the metallic puddles. The experimental approach used sets the stage for investigations of charge dynamics on the nanoscale in other inhomogeneous correlated electron systems.

Subfields: Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Materials Chemistry, Polymers and Plastics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a297e925837e22928ff8e89ca02194cb6a556bbe

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In Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

1. F. Capasso
2. R. Averitt
3. Mikhail A. Kats
4. D. Basov
5. C. Ko
6. Zheng Yang
7. Shriram Ramanathan
8. D. Marel

In Materials Chemistry

1. D. Basov
2. C. Ko
3. Zheng Yang
4. Shriram Ramanathan
5. D. Marel
6. R. Averitt
7. K. Haule

In Polymers and Plastics

1. F. Capasso
2. C. Ko
3. Zheng Yang
4. Shriram Ramanathan

Citations in the corpus

• Advances and challenges in commercializing radiative cooling (2019, background): “Moreover, the phase transition temperature of VO2 can be adjusted to room temperature by doping W or Mo [85,86] and interfacial strain [87].”
• Electrodynamics of correlated electron materials (2011, background): “Near field measurements uncovered the percolative nature of the IMT in VO2 (Qazilbash et al., 2007, 2008b; Zhan et al., 2007) [see Sec.”