Impact of biaxial and uniaxial strain on V${}_2$O${}_3$

Abstract

Using first-principles calculations we determine the role of compressive and tensile uniaxial and equibiaxial strain on the structural, electronic and magnetic properties of V${}_2$O${}_3$. We find that compressive strain increases the energy cost to transition from the high-temperature paramagnetic metallic phase to the low-temperature antiferromagnetic insulating phase. This shift in the energy difference can be explained by changes in the V-V bond lengths that are antiferromagnetically aligned in the low temperature structure. The insights that we have obtained provide a microscopic explanation for the shifts in the metal-insulator transition temperature that have been observed in experiments of V${}_2$O${}_3$ films grown on different substrates.

References in corpus (1)

• The role of defects in the metal-insulator transition in VO${}_2$ and V${}_2$O${}_3$