Search results for "Metal–insulator transition"
showing 10 items of 15 documents
Properties of native ultrathin aluminium oxide tunnel barriers
2003
We have investigated planar metal–insulator–metal tunnel junctions with aluminium oxide as the dielectricum. These oxide barriers were grown on an aluminium electrode in pure oxygen at room temperature till saturation. By applying the Simmons model we derived discrete widths of the tunnelling barrier, separated by Δs ≈ 0.38 nm. This corresponds to the addition of single layers of oxygen atoms. The minimum thickness of s0 ≈ 0.54 nm is then due to a double layer of oxygen. We found a strong and systematic dependence of the barrier height on the barrier thickness. Breakdown fields up to 5 GV m−1 were reached. They decreased strongly with increasing barrier thickness. Electrical breakdown could…
Realistic investigations of correlated electron systems with LDA + DMFT
2006
Conventional band structure calculations in the local density approximation (LDA) [1–3] are highly successful for many materials, but miss important aspects of the physics and energetics of strongly correlated electron systems, such as transition metal oxides and f-electron systems displaying, e.g., Mott insulating and heavy quasiparticle behavior. In this respect, the LDA + DMFT approach which merges LDA with a modern many-body approach, the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT), has proved to be a breakthrough for the realistic modeling of correlated materials. Depending on the strength of the electronic correlation, a LDA + DMFT calculation yields the weakly correlated LDA results, a strong…
SPATIAL MULTIFRACTALITY OF ELECTRONIC STATES AND THE METAL-INSULATOR TRANSITION IN DISORDERED SYSTEMS
1993
For the investigation of the spatial behavior of electronic wave functions in disordered systems, we employ the Anderson model of localization. The eigenstates of the corresponding Hamiltonian are calculated numerically by means of the Lanczos algorithm and are analyzed with respect to their spatial multifractal properties. We find that the wave functions show spatial multifractality for all parameter cases not too far away from the metal-insulator transition (MIT) which separates localized from extended states in this model. Exactly at the MIT, multifractality is expected to exist on all length scales larger than the lattice spacing. It is found that the corresponding singularity spectrum…
Quantum Monte Carlo study of insulating state in NaV2O5
2003
Abstract Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods are being increasingly used as complements to Hartree–Fock (HF) methods for computing the electronic structure of molecules and materials. We investigate the nature of the insulating state driven by electronic correlations in the ladder compound NaV 2 O 5 ; considered as a quarter-filled system. We use an extended Hubbard model (EHM) to study the role of on-site and inter-site Coulomb interaction. It is found that the insulating state in the charge-disordered phase of this compound take origin from the transfer of spectral density and dynamical fluctuations. Our calculation allows us also, to understand the origin of the insulating states above T C…
Short range charge/orbital ordering in La1−xSrxMn1−zBzO3 (B = Cu,Zn) manganites
2005
We have measured the reflectivity spectra of La1−x SrxMn1−zBzO3 (B = Cu, Zn; 0.17 x 0.30; 0 z 0.10) manganites over wide frequency (100–4000 cm −1 )a nd temperature (80–300 K) ranges. Besides the previously observed infrared active modes or mode pairs at about 160 cm −1 (external mode), 350 cm −1 (bond bending mode) and 590 cm −1 (bond stretching mode), we have clearly observed two additional phonon modes at about 645 and 720 cm −1 below the temperature T1 (T1 < TC), which coincides with the phase transition temperature when the system transforms from ferromagnetic metallic into a ferromagnetic insulator state. This transition is related to the formation of short range charge/orbitally orde…
Critical behavior of Si:P at the metal-insulator transition
1994
A Comment on the Letter by H. Stupp et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 2634 (1993).
Giant magnetoresistance in semiconducting DyNiBi
2008
Abstract The semiconducting half-Heulser compound DyNiBi shows a negative giant magnetoresistance (GMR) below 200 K. Except for a weak deviation, this magnetoresistance scales roughly with the square of the magnetization in the paramagnetic state, and is related to the metal–insulator transition. At low temperature, a positive magnetoresistance is found, which can be suppressed by high fields. The magnitude of the positive magnetoresistance changes slightly with the amount of impurity phase.
Phase coherence of an atomic Mott insulator
2005
International audience; We investigate the phase coherence properties of ultracold Bose gases in optical lattices, with special emphasis on the Mott insulating phase. We show that phase coherence on short length scales persists even deep in the insulating phase, preserving a finite visibility of the interference pattern observed after free expansion. This behavior can be attributed to a coherent admixture of particle/hole pairs to the perfect Mott state for small but finite tunneling. In addition, small but reproducible ``kinks'' are seen in the visibility, in a broad range of atom numbers. We interpret them as signatures for density redistribution in the shell structure of the trapped Mott…
Metallic and Insulating Phases of Repulsively Interacting Fermions in a 3D Optical Lattice
2008
The fermionic Hubbard model plays a fundamental role in the description of strongly correlated materials. Here we report on the realization of this Hamiltonian using a repulsively interacting spin mixture of ultracold $^{40}$K atoms in a 3D optical lattice. We have implemented a new method to directly measure the compressibility of the quantum gas in the trap using in-situ imaging and independent control of external confinement and lattice depth. Together with a comparison to ab-initio Dynamical Mean Field Theory calculations, we show how the system evolves for increasing confinement from a compressible dilute metal over a strongly-interacting Fermi liquid into a band insulating state. For …
Formation of spatial shell structures in the superfluid to Mott insulator transition
2006
International audience; We report on the direct observation of the transition from a compressible superfluid to an incompressible Mott insulator by recording the in-trap density distribution of a Bosonic quantum gas in an optical lattice. Using spatially selective microwave transitions and spin changing collisions, we are able to locally modify the spin state of the trapped quantum gas and record the spatial distribution of lattice sites with different filling factors. As the system evolves from a superfluid to a Mott insulator, we observe the formation of a distinct shell structure, in good agreement with theory.