Towards Electrical-Current Control of Quantum States in Spin-Orbit-Coupled Matter
arXiv:2004.14510 · doi:10.1088/1361-648X/ab9d47
Abstract
Novel materials, which often exhibit surprising or even revolutionary physical properties, are necessary for critical advances in technologies. Simultaneous control of structural and physical properties via a small electrical current is of great significance both fundamentally and technologically. Recent studies demonstrate that a combination of strong spin-orbit interactions and a distorted crystal structure in magnetic Mott insulators is sufficient to attain this long-desired goal. In this Topical Review, we highlight underlying properties of this class of materials and present two representative antiferromagnetic Mott insulators, namely, 4d-electron based Ca2RuO4 and 5d-electron based Sr2IrO4, as model systems. In essence, a small, applied electrical current engages with the lattice, critically reducing structural distortions, which in turn readily suppresses the antiferromagnetic and insulating state and subsequently results in emergent new states. While details may vary in different materials, at the heart of these phenomena are current-reduced lattice distortions, which, via spin-orbit interactions, dictate physical properties. Electrical current, which joins magnetic field, electric field, pressure, light, etc. as a new external stimulus, provides a new, key dimension for materials research, and also pose a series of intriguing questions that may provide the impetus for advancing our understanding of spin-orbit-coupled matter. This Topical Review provides a brief introduction, a few hopefully informative examples and some general remarks. It is by no means an exhaustive report of the current state of studies on this topic.
arXiv comment35 pages, 25 figures, invited topical review
References in corpus (43)
- Mott Insulators in the Strong Spin-Orbit Coupling Limit: From Heisenberg to a Quantum Compass and Kitaev Models
- Novel Jeff = 1/2 Mott State Induced by Relativistic Spin-Orbit Coupling in Sr2IrO4
- Correlated quantum phenomena in the strong spin-orbit regime
- Spin-Orbit Physics Giving Rise to Novel Phases in Correlated Systems: Iridates and Related Materials
- Bandwidth-Controlled Insulator-Metal Transition and Correlated Metallic State in 5 Transition Metal Oxides SrIrO (=1, 2, and )
- Twisted Hubbard Model for Sr2IrO4: Magnetism and Possible High Temperature Superconductivity
- Transport Properties, Thermodynamic Properties, and Electronic Structure of SrRuO3
- Electronic structure and magnetism in Ru based perovskites
- Structure and Control of Charge Density Waves in Two-Dimensional 1T-TaS2
- The ground state of Sr3Ru2O7 revisited; Fermi liquid close to a ferromagnetic instability
- Strong spin-orbit coupling effects on the Fermi surface of Sr2RuO4 and Sr2RhO4
- The magnetic and crystal structures of Sr2IrO4: A neutron diffraction study
- Lattice-Driven Magnetoresistivity and Metal-Insulator Transition in Single-Layered Iridates
- Reduced effective spin-orbital degeneracy and spin-orbital ordering in paramagnetic transition metal oxides: Sr2IrO4 vs. Sr2RhO4
- Two-dimensional Heisenberg behavior of Jeff = 1/2 isospins in the paramagnetic state of spin-orbital Mott insulator Sr2IrO4
- Destruction of the Mott Insulating Ground State of Ca_2RuO_4 by a Structural Transition
- Nature of the Mott transition in Ca2RuO4
- Magnetic Phase Diagram of Ca2-xSrxRuO4 Governed by Structural Distortions
- From Mott insulator to ferromagnetic metal: a pressure study of CaRuO
- Dimensionality Driven Spin-Flop Transition in Layered Iridates
- Coulomb-Enhanced Spin-Orbit Splitting: The Missing Piece in the Sr2RhO4 Puzzle
- Spin-orbit tuned metal-insulator transitions in single-crystal Sr2Ir1-xRhxO4 (0\leqx\leq1)
- Slaving of the magnetic moment canting to the correlated oxygen rotation in Sr2IrO4 revealed by X-ray resonant scattering
- A structural distortion induced magneto-elastic locking in SrIrO revealed through nonlinear optical harmonic generation
- Orbital ordering transition in CaRuO observed with resonant x-ray diffraction
- Prediction of Orbital Ordering in Single-Layered Ruthenates
- Electron and orbital correlations in Ca_{2-x}Sr_{x}RuO_{4} probed by optical spectroscopy
- High pressure diffraction studies on Ca2RuO4
- Current-Induced Gap Suppression in the Mott Insulator CaRuO
- Pressure-Tuned Collapse of the Mott-Like State in Ca_{n+1}Ru_nO_{3n+1} (n=1,2): Raman Spectroscopic Studies
- Local density of states study of a spin-orbit-coupling induced Mott insulator SrIrO
- Measurement of the internal magnetic field in the correlated iridates CaIrO, CaIrO, SrIrO and SrIrO
- A Unique Crystal Structure of CaRuO in the Current Stabilized Semi-Metallic State
- Magnetic and Orbital Orders Coupled to Negative Thermal Expansion in Mott Insulators, Ca2Ru1-xMxO4 (M = Mn and Fe)
- Decoupling of the Antiferromagnetic and Insulating States in Tb doped Sr2IrO4
- Current-induced giant diamagnetism in the Mott insulator Ca2RuO4
- Electrical Control of Structural and Physical Properties via Strong Spin-Orbit Interactions in Sr2IrO4
- Emergence of a metallic meta-stable phase induced by electrical current in Ca_2RuO_4
- Nonequilibrium Orbital Transitions via Applied Electrical Current in Calcium Ruthenate
- Persistent Insulator: Avoidance of Metallization at Megabar Pressures in Strongly Spin-Orbit-Coupled Sr2IrO4
- Spin-orbit coupling induced Mott transition in CaSrRuO (0<x<0.2)
- In situ control of diamagnetism by electric current in Ca(RuTi)O
- Observation of a pressure-induced transition from interlayer ferromagnetism to intralayer antiferromagnetism in Sr4Ru3O10