Jian Liu, J. -H. Chu, C. Rayan Serrao, D. Yi, J. Koralek, C. Nelson, C. Frontera, D. Kriegner, L. Horak, E. Arenholz, J. Orenstein, A. Vishwanath, X. Marti, R. Ramesh
We investigated the electronic properties of epitaxially stabilized perovskite SrIrO3 and demonstrated the effective strain-control on its electronic structure. Comprehensive transport measurements showed that the strong spin-orbit coupling renders a novel semimetallic phase for the J_eff=1/2 electrons rather than an ordinary correlated metal, elucidating the nontrivial mechanism underlying the dimensionality-controlled metal-insulator transition in iridates. The electron-hole symmetry of this correlated semimetal was found to exhibit drastic variation when subject to bi-axial strain. Under compressive strain, substantial electron-hole asymmetry is observed in contrast to the tensile side, where the electron and hole effective masses are comparable, illustrating the susceptivity of the J_eff=1/2 to structural distortion. Tensile strain also shrinks the Fermi surface, indicative of an increasing degree of correlation which is consistent with optical measurements. These results pave a pathway to investigate and manipulate the electronic states in spin-orbit-coupled correlated oxides, and lay the foundation for constructing 5d transition metal heterostructures.
View original:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.1732
No comments:
Post a Comment