| CONDENSED MATTER: ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE, ELECTRICAL, MAGNETIC, AND OPTICAL PROPERTIES |
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Tuning the Mottness in Sr$_{3}$Ir$_{2}$O$_{7}$ via Bridging Oxygen Vacancies |
| Miao Xu1†, Changwei Zou1†, Benchao Gong2†, Ke Jia3,4, Shusen Ye1, Zhenqi Hao1, Kai Liu2, Youguo Shi3,4, Zhong-Yi Lu2*, Peng Cai2*, and Yayu Wang1,5 |
1State Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
2Department of Physics and Beijing Key Laboratory of Opto-electronic Functional Materials and Micro-nano Devices, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China
3Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
4Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan 523808, China
5Frontier Science Center for Quantum Information, Beijing 100084, China
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| Cite this article: |
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Miao Xu, Changwei Zou, Benchao Gong et al 2023 Chin. Phys. Lett. 40 037101 |
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Abstract The electronic evolution of Mott insulators into exotic correlated phases remains puzzling, because of electron interaction and inhomogeneity. Introduction of individual imperfections in Mott insulators could help capture the main mechanism and serve as a basis to understand the evolution. Here we utilize scanning tunneling microscopy to probe the atomic scale electronic structure of the spin-orbit-coupling assisted Mott insulator Sr$_{3}$Ir$_{2}$O$_{7}$. It is found that the tunneling spectra exhibit a homogeneous Mott gap in defect-free regions, but near the oxygen vacancy in the rotated IrO$_{2}$ plane the local Mott gap size is significantly enhanced. We attribute the enhanced gap to the locally reduced hopping integral between the 5$d$ electrons of neighboring Ir sites via the bridging planar oxygen $p$ orbitals. Such bridging defects have a dramatic influence on local bandwidth, thus provide a new way to manipulate the strength of Mottness in a Mott insulator.
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Received: 12 December 2022
Published: 28 February 2023
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| PACS: |
71.27.+a
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(Strongly correlated electron systems; heavy fermions)
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71.70.Ej
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(Spin-orbit coupling, Zeeman and Stark splitting, Jahn-Teller effect)
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68.37.Ef
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(Scanning tunneling microscopy (including chemistry induced with STM))
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