Survival of the metallic state in a single-hole multiband $p$-orbital molecular system

Abstract

Strong correlations and ferromagnetic Hund's coupling lead to diverse electronic phenomena in transition-metal oxides that sensitively depend on the $d$-orbital electron filling. Fullerides, their $p$-electron counterparts, exhibit effective antiferromagnetic Hund's coupling in a different energy range. At half-filling ($n=3$, three electrons in triply degenerate orbitals), both $d-$ and $p$-electron systems are Mott insulators due to strong correlations and Hund's coupling. Away from half-filling, in single-electron/hole ($n=1,5$) $d$-orbital systems, Hund's coupling opposes the correlations, reducing the Mott gap and allowing survival of metallicity. Here we report a single-hole multiorbital correlated $p$-electron system, orthorhombic-structured Yb${}_2$CsC${}_{60}$ comprising pentavalent C${}_{60}^{5-}$ anions, which also exhibits a robust metallic state with no Mott transition, just like in the metastable single-electron cubic-structured CsC${}_{60}$. We assert that particle-hole symmetry holds well in ($n=1,5$) fullerides and that their $p$-electron-derived states are analogous to those in $d$-orbital solids, providing impetus for further study of these correlated systems.

12 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (4)

• The Hubbard Model
• Modeling the Unconventional Superconducting Properties of Expanded A${}_3$C${}_{60}$ Fullerides
• Unconventional Pairing from Local Orbital Fluctuations in Strongly Correlated A${}_3$C${}_{60}$
• Entropy and electronic orders of the three-orbital Hubbard model with antiferromagnetic Hund coupling