Correlation-driven insulator-metal transition in near-ideal vanadium dioxide films

Abstract

We use polarization- and temperature-dependent x-ray absorption spectroscopy, in combination with photoelectron microscopy, x-ray diffraction and electronic transport measurements, to study the driving force behind the insulator-metal transition in VO2. We show that both the collapse of the insulating gap and the concomitant change in crystal symmetry in homogeneously strained single-crystalline VO2 films are preceded by the purely-electronic softening of Coulomb correlations within V-V singlet dimers. This process starts 7 K (+/- 0.3 K) below the transition temperature, as conventionally defined by electronic transport and x-ray diffraction measurements, and sets the energy scale for driving the near-room-temperature insulator-metal transition in this technologically-promising material.

References in corpus (3)

• Mott transition in VO2 revealed by infrared spectroscopy and nano-imaging
• Orbital-assisted metal-insulator transition in VO${}_2$
• Direct Observation of Decoupled Structural and Electronic Transitions and an Ambient Pressure Monoclinic-Like Metallic Phase of VO${}_2$

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