Mott p-n Junctions in layered materials

Abstract

The p-n junction has provided the basis for the semiconductor-device industry. Investigations of p-n junctions based on Mott insulators is still in its infancy. Layered Mott insulators, such as the cuprates or other transition metal-oxides, present a special challenge since strong in-plane correlations are important. Here we model the planes carefully using plaquette Cellular Dynamical Mean Field Theory with an exact diagonalization solver. The energy associated with inter-plane hopping is neglected compared with the long-range Coulomb interaction that we treat in the Hartree-Fock approximation. Within this new approach, "Dynamical Layer Theory", the charge redistribution is obtained at the final step from minimization of a function of the layer fillings. A simple analytical description of the solution, in the spirit of Thomas-Fermi theory, reproduces quite accurately the numerical results. Various interesting charge reconstructions can be obtained by varying the Fermi energy differences between both sides of the junction. One can even obtain quasi-two dimensional charge carriers at the interface, in the middle of a Mott insulating layer. The density of states as a function of position does not follow the simple band bending picture of semiconductors.

7 pages, 4 figures, 54 references

References in corpus (11)

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• Electric Field Control of the LaAlO${}_3$/SrTiO${}_3$ Interface Ground State
• High-temperature interface superconductivity between metallic and insulating cuprates
• Kondo proximity effect: How does a metal penetrate into a Mott insulator?
• Bath optimization in the Cellular Dynamical Mean Field Theory
• Embedding approach for dynamical mean field theory of strongly correlated heterostructures
• Electron-Hole Liquids in Transition Metal Oxide Heterostructures
• Electronic Interface Reconstruction at Polar-Nonpolar Mott Insulator Heterojunctions
• Modulated electronic configurations in selectively doped multilayered nanostructures
• Electronic charge reconstruction of doped Mott insulators in multilayered nanostructures
• Electronic and magnetic properties in strongly correlated heterostructures

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Emergent properties hidden in plane view: Strong electronic correlations at oxide interfaces
• Engineered Mott ground state in LaTiO${}_{3+\delta }$/LaNiO${}_3$ heterostructure
• GaN / VO2 heteroepitaxial p-n junctions: Band offset and minority carrier dynamics
• Nonequilibrium dynamical mean field simulation of inhomogeneous systems
• Electronic transport and dynamics in correlated heterostructures
• Superconductor to Mott insulator transition in YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_7$/LaCaMnO${}_3$ heterostructures
• Brillouin-zone integration scheme for many-body density of states: Tetrahedron method combined with cluster perturbation theory
• An electric-field driven Mott metal-insulator transition in correlated thin films: an inhomogeneous dynamical mean-field theory approach
• Effect of high oxygen pressure annealing on superconducting Nd1.85Ce0.15CuO4 thin films by pulsed laser deposition from Cu-enriched targets
• Thermoelectric properties of a strongly correlated layer
• Degenerate orbital effect in a three orbital periodic Anderson model