550 research outputs found
Interplay between shear loading and structural aging in a physical gel
We show that the aging of the mechanical relaxation of a gelatin gel exhibits
the same scaling phenomenology as polymer and colloidal glasses. Besides,
gelatin is known to exhibit logarithmic structural aging (stiffening). We find
that stress accelerates this process. However, this effect is definitely
irreducible to a mere age shift with respect to natural aging. We suggest that
it is interpretable in terms of elastically-aided elementary (coilhelix)
local events whose dynamics gradually slows down as aging increases geometric
frustration
Poor electronic screening in lightly doped Mott insulators observed with scanning tunneling microscopy
The effective Mott gap measured by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) in the
lightly doped Mott insulator differs
greatly from values reported by photoemission and optical experiments. Here, we
show that this is a consequence of the poor electronic screening of the
tip-induced electric field in this material. Such effects are well known from
STM experiments on semiconductors, and go under the name of tip-induced band
bending (TIBB). We show that this phenomenon also exists in the lightly doped
Mott insulator and that, at doping
concentrations of , it causes the measured energy gap in the sample
density of states to be bigger than the one measured with other techniques. We
develop a model able to retrieve the intrinsic energy gap leading to a value
which is in rough agreement with other experiments, bridging the apparent
contradiction. At doping we further observe circular features
in the conductance layers that point to the emergence of a significant density
of free carriers in this doping range, and to the presence of a small
concentration of donor atoms. We illustrate the importance of considering the
presence of TIBB when doing STM experiments on correlated-electron systems and
discuss the similarities and differences between STM measurements on
semiconductors and lightly doped Mott insulators.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure
Quasiparticle dynamics and spin-orbital texture of the SrTiO3 two-dimensional electron gas
Two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) in SrTiO have become model systems
for engineering emergent behaviour in complex transition metal oxides.
Understanding the collective interactions that enable this, however, has thus
far proved elusive. Here we demonstrate that angle-resolved photoemission can
directly image the quasiparticle dynamics of the -electron subband ladder of
this complex-oxide 2DEG. Combined with realistic tight-binding supercell
calculations, we uncover how quantum confinement and inversion symmetry
breaking collectively tune the delicate interplay of charge, spin, orbital, and
lattice degrees of freedom in this system. We reveal how they lead to
pronounced orbital ordering, mediate an orbitally-enhanced Rashba splitting
with complex subband-dependent spin-orbital textures and markedly change the
character of electron-phonon coupling, co-operatively shaping the low-energy
electronic structure of the 2DEG. Our results allow for a unified understanding
of spectroscopic and transport measurements across different classes of
SrTiO-based 2DEGs, and yield new microscopic insights on their functional
properties.Comment: 10 pages including supplementary information, 4+4 figure
Creation and control of a two-dimensional electron liquid at the bare SrTiO3 surface
Many-body interactions in transition-metal oxides give rise to a wide range
of functional properties, such as high-temperature superconductivity, colossal
magnetoresistance, or multiferroicity. The seminal recent discovery of a
two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) at the interface of the insulating oxides
LaAlO3 and SrTiO3 represents an important milestone towards exploiting such
properties in all-oxide devices. This conducting interface shows a number of
appealing properties, including a high electron mobility, superconductivity,
and large magnetoresistance and can be patterned on the few-nanometer length
scale. However, the microscopic origin of the interface 2DEG is poorly
understood. Here, we show that a similar 2DEG, with an electron density as
large as 8x10^13 cm^-2, can be formed at the bare SrTiO3 surface. Furthermore,
we find that the 2DEG density can be controlled through exposure of the surface
to intense ultraviolet (UV) light. Subsequent angle-resolved photoemission
spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements reveal an unusual coexistence of a light
quasiparticle mass and signatures of strong many-body interactions.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, supplementary information (see other files
Control of a two-dimensional electron gas on SrTiO3(111) by atomic oxygen
We report on the formation of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) at the
bare surface of (111) oriented SrTiO3. Angle resolved photoemission experiments
reveal highly itinerant carriers with a 6-fold symmetric Fermi surface and
strongly anisotropic effective masses. The electronic structure of the 2DEG is
in good agreement with self-consistent tight-binding supercell calculations
that incorporate a confinement potential due to surface band bending. We
further demonstrate that alternate exposure of the surface to ultraviolet light
and atomic oxygen allows tuning of the carrier density and the complete
suppression of the 2DEG.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Mott transition and collective charge pinning in electron doped Sr2IrO4
We studied the in-plane dynamic and static charge conductivity of electron
doped Sr2IrO4 using optical spectroscopy and DC transport measurements. The
optical conductivity indicates that the pristine material is an indirect
semiconductor with a direct Mott-gap of 0.55 eV. Upon substitution of 2% La per
formula unit the Mott-gap is suppressed except in a small fraction of the
material (15%) where the gap survives, and overall the material remains
insulating. Instead of a zero energy mode (or Drude peak) we observe a soft
collective mode (SCM) with a broad maximum at 40 meV. Doping to 10% increases
the strength of the SCM, and a zero-energy mode occurs together with metallic
DC conductivity. Further increase of the La substitution doesn't change the
spectral weight integral up to 3 eV. It does however result in a transfer of
the SCM spectral weight to the zero-energy mode, with a corresponding reduction
of the DC resistivity for all temperatures from 4 to 300 K. The presence of a
zero-energy mode signals that at least part of the Fermi surface remains
ungapped at low temperatures, whereas the SCM appears to be caused by pinning a
collective frozen state involving part of the doped electrons
Strong electron correlations in the normal state of FeSe0.42Te0.58
We investigate the normal state of the '11' iron-based superconductor
FeSe0.42Te0.58 by angle resolved photoemission. Our data reveal a highly
renormalized quasiparticle dispersion characteristic of a strongly correlated
metal. We find sheet dependent effective carrier masses between ~ 3 - 16 m_e
corresponding to a mass enhancement over band structure values of m*/m_band ~ 6
- 20. This is nearly an order of magnitude higher than the renormalization
reported previously for iron-arsenide superconductors of the '1111' and '122'
families but fully consistent with the bulk specific heat.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Atomically precise lateral modulation of a two-dimensional electron liquid in anatase TiO2 thin films
Engineering the electronic band structure of two-dimensional electron liquids
(2DELs) confined at the surface or interface of transition metal oxides is key
to unlocking their full potential. Here we describe a new approach to tailoring
the electronic structure of an oxide surface 2DEL demonstrating the lateral
modulation of electronic states with atomic scale precision on an unprecedented
length scale comparable to the Fermi wavelength. To this end, we use pulsed
laser deposition to grow anatase TiO2 films terminated by a (1 x 4) in-plane
surface reconstruction. Employing photo-stimulated chemical surface doping we
induce 2DELs with tunable carrier densities that are confined within a few TiO2
layers below the surface. Subsequent in-situ angle resolved photoemission
experiments demonstrate that the (1 x 4) surface reconstruction provides a
periodic lateral perturbation of the electron liquid. This causes strong
backfolding of the electronic bands, opening of unidirectional gaps and a
saddle point singularity in the density of states near the chemical potential
Collapse of the Mott gap and emergence of a nodal liquid in lightly doped SrIrO
Superconductivity in underdoped cuprates emerges from an unusual electronic
state characterised by nodal quasiparticles and an antinodal pseudogap. The
relation between this state and superconductivity is intensely studied but
remains controversial. The discrimination between competing theoretical models
is hindered by a lack of electronic structure data from related doped Mott
insulators. Here we report the doping evolution of the Heisenberg
antiferromagnet SrIrO, a close analogue to underdoped cuprates. We
demonstrate that metallicity emerges from a rapid collapse of the Mott gap with
doping, resulting in lens-like Fermi contours rather than disconnected Fermi
arcs as observed in cuprates. Intriguingly though, the emerging electron liquid
shows nodal quasiparticles with an antinodal pseudogap and thus bares strong
similarities with underdoped cuprates. We conclude that anisotropic pseudogaps
are a generic property of two-dimensional doped Mott insulators rather than a
unique hallmark of cuprate high-temperature superconductivity
- …