Role of local temperature in the current-driven metal-insulator transition of Ca2RuO4

Abstract

It was recently reported that a continuous electric current is a powerful control parameter to trigger changes in the electronic structure and metal-insulator transitions (MITs) in Ca2RuO4. However, the spatial evolution of the MIT and the implications of the unavoidable Joule heating have not been clarified yet, often hindered by the difficulty to asses the local sample temperature. In this work, we perform infrared thermal imaging on single-crystal Ca2RuO4 while controlling the MIT by electric current. The change in emissivity at the phase transition allows us to monitor the gradual formation and expansion of metallic phase upon increasing current. Our local temperature measurements indicate that, within our experimental resolution, the MIT always occurs at the same local transition temperatures, irrespectively if driven by temperature or by current. Our results highlight the importance of local heating, phase coexistence, and microscale inhomogeneity when studying strongly correlated materials under the flow of electric current.

References in corpus (7)

• The origin of hysteresis in resistive switching in magnetite is Joule heating
• Tailoring the electronic properties of Ca${}_2$RuO${}_4$ via epitaxial strain
• Emergence of a metallic meta-stable phase induced by electrical current in Ca_2RuO_4
• Polarity dependent heating at the phase interface in metal-insulator transitions
• Evidence for current-induced phase coexistence in Ca${}_2$RuO${}_4$ and its influence on magnetic order
• In situ control of diamagnetism by electric current in Ca${}_3$(Ru${}_{1-x}$Ti${}_x$)${}_2$O${}_7$
• Diamagnetic-like response from localised heating of a paramagnetic material

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Current driven insulator-to-metal transition without Mott breakdown in Ca${}_2$RuO${}_4$
• Pattern Formation by Electric-field Quench in Mott Crystal
• Nature of the current-induced insulator-to-metal transition in Ca${}_2$RuO${}_4$ as revealed by transport-ARPES
• Mott-Insulator Ca2RuO4 under a static external electric field
• Challenges in extracting nonlinear current-induced phenomena in Ca2RuO4
• Metallisation of the Mott Insulator Ca${}_2$RuO${}_4$ using Electric Double-Layer Gating
• Multi-probe detection of domain nucleation across the metal-insulator transition in VO${}_2$
• Universal size-dependent nonlinear charge transport in single crystals of the Mott insulator Ca${}_2$RuO${}_4$