First-order melting of a weak spin-orbit Mott insulator into a correlated metal

Abstract

The electronic phase diagram of the weak spin-orbit Mott insulator (Sr(1-x)Lax)3Ir2O7 is determined via an exhaustive experimental study. Upon doping electrons via La substitution, an immediate collapse in resistivity occurs along with a narrow regime of nanoscale phase separation comprised of antiferromagnetic, insulating regions and paramagnetic, metallic puddles persisting until x~0.04. Continued electron doping results in an abrupt, first-order phase boundary where the Neel state is suppressed and a homogenous, correlated, metallic state appears with an enhanced spin susceptibility and local moments. As the metallic state is stabilized, a weak structural distortion develops and suggests a competing instability with the parent spin-orbit Mott state.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (10)

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• A weakly correlated Fermi liquid state with a small Fermi surface in lightly doped Sr${}_3$Ir${}_2$O${}_7$
• Phase separation in doped Mott insulators

Cited by in corpus (15)

• Square Lattice Iridates
• Doping Evolution of Magnetic Order and Magnetic Excitations in (Sr${}_{1-x}$La${}_x$)${}_3$Ir${}_2$O${}_7$
• Lattice frustration in spin-orbit Mott insulator Sr3Ir2O7 at high pressure
• Disordered dimer state in electron-doped Sr${}_3$Ir${}_2$O${}_7$
• Structural evolution and electronic properties of (Sr1-xCax)2-yIrO4+z spin-orbit assisted insulators
• Imaging antiferromagnetic domain fluctuations and the effect of atomic-scale disorder in a doped spin-orbit Mott insulator
• Response of the lattice across the filling-controlled Mott metal-insulator transition of a rare earth titanate
• Correlated electron metal properties of the honeycomb ruthenate Na${}_2$RuO${}_3$
• Doping driven structural distortion in the bilayer iridate (Sr${}_{1-x}$La${}_x$)${}_3$Ir${}_2$O${}_7$
• Overdamped antiferromagnetic strange metal state in Sr${}_3$IrRuO${}_7$
• Observation of excitons bound by antiferromagnetic correlations
• Superconductivity and Electron Correlations in Kagome Metal LuOs3B2
• Epitaxial growth and antiferromagnetism of Sn-substituted perovskite iridate SrIr${}_{0.8}$Sn${}_{0.2}$O${}_3$
• Evolution of the spectral lineshape at the magnetic transition in Sr2IrO4 and Sr3Ir2O7
• Absence of temperature-dependent phonon anomalies in Sr2IrO4 and Sr3Ir2O7