Nanoscale self-organization and metastable non-thermal metallicity in Mott insulators

Year: 2022

Authors: Ronchi A., Franceschini P., De Poli A., Homm P., Fitzpatrick A., Maccherozzi F., Ferrini G., Banfi F., Dhesi SS., Menghini M., Fabrizio M., Locquet JP., Giannetti C.

Autors Affiliation: Univ Cattolica Sacro Cuore, Dept Math & Phys, I-25133 Brescia, Italy; Katholieke Univ Leuven, Dept Phys & Astron, Celestijnenlaan 200D, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium; Univ Cattolica Sacro Cuore, ILAMP Interdisciplinary Labs Adv Mat Phys, I-25133 Brescia, Italy; Scuola Int Super Studi Avanzati SISSA, Via Bonomea 265, I-34136 Trieste, Italy; Diamond Light Source, Didcot OX11 0DE, Oxon, England; Univ Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Univ Lyon, FemtoNanoOpt Grp, CNRS,Inst Lumiere Matiere, F-69622 Villeurbanne, France; IMDEA Nanociencia, Madrid 28049, Spain; Pirelli Tyre SpA, Viale Piero & Alberto Pirelli 25, I-20126 Milan, Italy; CNR INO Natl Inst Opt, Via Branze 45, I-25123 Brescia, Italy.

Abstract: Mott metal-insulator transition in real materials is characterized by complex lattice and electron dynamics involving multiple length and time scales. Here, by combining time-resolved experimental probe and coarse-grained modelling, the authors elucidate the nanoscale dynamics across the Mott transition in V2O3. Mott transitions in real materials are first order and almost always associated with lattice distortions, both features promoting the emergence of nanotextured phases. This nanoscale self-organization creates spatially inhomogeneous regions, which can host and protect transient non-thermal electronic and lattice states triggered by light excitation. Here, we combine time-resolved X-ray microscopy with a Landau-Ginzburg functional approach for calculating the strain and electronic real-space configurations. We investigate V2O3, the archetypal Mott insulator in which nanoscale self-organization already exists in the low-temperature monoclinic phase and strongly affects the transition towards the high-temperature corundum metallic phase. Our joint experimental-theoretical approach uncovers a remarkable out-of-equilibrium phenomenon: the photo-induced stabilisation of the long sought monoclinic metal phase, which is absent at equilibrium and in homogeneous materials, but emerges as a metastable state solely when light excitation is combined with the underlying nanotexture of the monoclinic lattice.

Journal/Review: NATURE COMMUNICATIONS

Volume: 13 (1)      Pages from: 3730-1  to: 3730-14

More Information: C.G., A.R. and P.F. acknowledge financial support from MIUR through the PRIN 2015 (Prot. 2015C5SEJJ001) and PRIN 2017 (Prot. 20172H2SC4_005) programs. C.G. and G.F. acknowledge support from Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore through D.1, D.2.2 and D.3.1 grants. We acknowledge Diamond Light Source for the provision of beamtime under proposals number SI18897 and MM21700. J.-P.L. acknowledges financial supported by the KU Leuven Research Funds, Project No. KAC24/18/056, No. C14/17/080 and iBOF/21/084 as well as the Research Funds of the INTERREG-E-TEST Project (EMR113) and INTERREG-VL-NL-ETPATHFINDER Project (0559). M.M. acknowledges support from Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (MINCINN, Grant SEV-2016-0686). M.F. has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Grant agreement No. 692670 FIRSTORM.
KeyWords: Metal-insulator; Phase-transitions; Critical-behavior; Crystal-structure; V2o3; Anomalies; (v1-xcrx)2o3; Model; Pure; Spin
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31298-0

Citations: 11
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