Metal-insulator transition in a two-band model for the perovskite nickelates

Abstract

Motivated by recent Fermi surface and transport measurements on LaNiO3, we study the Mott Metal-Insulator transitions of perovskite nickelates, with the chemical formula RNiO3, where R is a rare-earth ion. We introduce and study a minimal two-band model, which takes into account only the eg bands. In the weak to intermediate correlation limit, a Hartree-Fock analysis predicts charge and spin order consistent with experiments on R=Pr, Nd, driven by Fermi surface nesting. It also produces an interesting semi-metallic electronic state in the model when an ideal cubic structure is assumed. We also study the model in the strong interaction limit, and find that the charge and magnetic order observed in experiment exist only in the presence of very large Hund's coupling, suggesting that additional physics is required to explain the properties of the more insulating nickelates, R=Eu,Lu,Y. Next, we extend our analysis to slabs of finite thickness. In ultra-thin slabs, quantum confinement effects substantially change the nesting properties and the magnetic ordering of the bulk, driving the material to exhibit highly anisotropic transport properties. However, pure confinement alone does not significantly enhance insulating behavior. Based on these results, we discuss the importance of various physical effects, and propose some experiments.

23 pages, 13 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Orbital order and possible superconductivity in LaNiO3/LaMO3 superlattices
• Dimensionality Control of Electronic Phase Transitions in Nickel-Oxide Superlattices
• Role of magnetic and orbital ordering at the metal-insulator transition in NdNiO3
• Quantum confinement of Mott electrons in ultrathin LaNiO3/LaAlO3 superlattice
• Landau theory of charge and spin ordering in the nickelates
• Strain-mediated metal-insulator transition in epitaxial ultra-thin films of NdNiO3
• Fermi surfaces, electron-hole asymmetry and correlation kink in a three-dimensional Fermi liquid LaNiO${}_3$
• Raman scattering investigation across the magnetic and MI transition in rare earth nickelate RNiO3 (R = Sm, Nd) thin films
• Chemical control of orbital polarization in artificially structured transition-metal oxides: La2NiXO6 (X=B, Al, Ga, In) from first principles

Cited by in corpus (61)

• Site-selective Mott transition in rare earth nickelates
• Physics of ultrathin films and heterostructures of rare earth nickelates
• Charge disproportionation without charge transfer in the rare-earth nickelates as a possible mechanism for the metal-insulator transition
• Topological insulators from complex orbital order in transition-metal oxides heterostructures
• Possible interaction driven topological phases in (111) bilayers of LaNiO3
• Low-energy description of the metal-insulator transition in the rare-earth nickelates
• Orbital control of noncollinear magnetic order in nickelate heterostructures
• Tuning bad metal and non-Fermi liquid behavior in a Mott material: rare earth nickelate thin films
• Tunable Charge and Spin Order in PrNiO${}_3$ Thin Films and Superlattices
• Theory of the magnetic and metal-insulator transitions in RNiO3 bulk and layered structures
• Total energy calculations using DFT+DMFT: computing the pressure phase diagram of the rare earth nickelates
• Interplay of octahedral rotations and breathing distortions in charge ordering perovskite oxides
• Striped nanoscale phase separation at the metal-insulator transition of heteroepitaxial nickelates
• Electronic structure of (LaNiO${}_3$)${}_2$/(LaAlO${}_3$)${}_N$ heterostructures grown along [111]
• Structural origins of the properties of rare earth nickelate superlattices
• Mechanism and Control Parameters of the Coupled Structural and Metal-Insulator Transition in Nickelates
• Hall effect measurements on epitaxial SmNiO3 thin films and implications for antiferromagnetism
• Quantum-Confinement-Induced Magnetism in LaNiO${}_3$-LaMnO${}_3$ Superlattices
• Mott Transition and Magnetism in Rare Earth Nickelates and its Fingerprint on the X-ray Scattering
• Competing exchange interactions on the verge of a metal-insulator transition in the two-dimensional spiral magnet Sr${}_3$Fe${}_2$O${}_7$
• Quantitative determination of bond order and lattice distortions in nickel oxide heterostructures by resonant x-ray scattering
• Quantifying electronic correlation strength in a complex oxide: a combined DMFT and ARPES study of LaNiO${}_3$
• Formal Valence, $d$ Occupation, and Charge-Order Transitions
• Latent Instabilities in Metallic LaNiO3 Films by Strain Control of Fermi-Surface Topology
• Metal-insulator transition and orbital reconstruction in Mott quantum wells of NdNiO${}_3$
• Site-selective Probe of Magnetic Excitations in Rare-earth Nickelates using Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering
• Oscillatory Non-collinear Magnetism Induced by Interfacial Charge Transfer in Metallic Oxide Superlattices
• Disentangled cooperative orderings in artificial rare-earth nickelates
• Octahedral Engineering of Orbital Polarizations in Charge Transfer Oxides
• Two-site fluctuations and multipolar superexchange interactions in strongly correlated systems
• Selective Interface Control of Order Parameters in Complex Oxides
• Observation of an antiferromagnetic quantum critical point in high-purity LaNiO${}_3$
• Hybridization-switching induced Mott transition in ABO${}_3$ perovskites
• Hallmark of strong electronic correlations in LaNiO${}_3$: photoemission kink and broadening of fully occupied bands
• Anomalous electron transport in epitaxial NdNiO${}_3$ films
• Observation and Structural Control of Charge-Density-Waves resonating with Terahertz Frequencies in NdNiO3
• Control of hidden ground-state order in NdNiO${}_3$ superlattices
• Dimensionality-tuned electronic structure of nickelate superlattices explored by soft-x-ray angle resolved photoelectron spectroscopy
• Charge States of Ions, and Mechanisms of Charge-Ordering Transitions
• Epitaxial Stabilization of Ultrathin Films of Rare-Earth Nickelates
• Breathing distortions in the metallic, antiferromagnetic phase of LaNiO${}_3$
• Metal-insulator-metal transition in NdNiO3 films capped by CoFe2O4
• Origins of bond and spin order in rare-earth nickelate bulk and heterostructures
• Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering study of bond order and spin excitations in nickelate thin-film structures
• Conductivity noise across temperature driven transitions of rare-earth nickelate heterostructures
• Electronic structure of buried LaNiO3 layers in (111)-oriented LaNiO3/LaMnO3 superlattices probed by soft x-ray ARPES
• Depth-Resolved Composition and Electronic Structure of Buried Layers and Interfaces in a LaNiO${}_3$/SrTiO${}_3$ Superlattice from Soft- and Hard- X-ray Standing-Wave Angle-Resolved Photoemission
• Unusual temperature dependence of the spectral weight near the Fermi level of NdNiO3 thin films
• A laser-ARPES study of LaNiO3 thin films grown by sputter deposition
• Effect of the electron-lattice coupling on the charge and magnetic order in rare-earth nickelates
• PERSPECTIVE: Emergent phases in rare earth nickelate heterostructures
• Epitaxially strained ultrathin LaNiO${}_3$/LaAlO${}_3$ and LaNiO${}_3$/SrTiO${}_3$ superlattices: a density functional theory + $U$ study
• Effects of reduced dimensionality, crystal field, electron-lattice coupling, and strain on the ground-state of a rare-earth nickelates monolayer
• A comparative DMFT study of the eg-orbital Hubbard model in thin films
• Competing spin-glass and spin-fluctuation states in NdxPr4-xNi3O8
• Suppression of Peierls-like, nesting-based instabilities in solids
• Hard x-ray photoemission study on strain effect in LaNiO${}_3$ thin films
• Gaps and pseudo-gaps at the Mott quantum Critical point in the perovskite rare earth nickelates
• Emergence and tunability of Fermi-pocket and electronic instabilities in layered Nickelates
• Probing electronic and magnetic transitions of short periodic nickelate superlattices using synchrotron x-ray
• Charge disproportionation and nano phase separation in $R$SrNiO${}_4$