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Nature Communications

Observation of an exotic insulator to insulator transition upon electron doping the Mott insulator CeMnAsO

Eve J. Wildman, Gaynor B. Lawrence, Aron Walsh, K. Morita, Struan Simpson, C. Ritter, Gavin B. G. Stenning, Ángel M. Arévalo‐López, Abbie Christina Mclaughlin

Published Nov 3, 2023• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract A promising route to discover exotic electronic states in correlated electron systems is to vary the hole or electron doping away from a Mott insulating state. Important examples include quantum criticality and high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates. Here, we report the surprising discovery of a quantum insulating state upon electron doping the Mott insulator CeMnAsO, which emerges below a distinct critical transition temperature, TII. The insulator-insulator transition is accompanied by a significant reduction in electron mobility as well as a colossal Seebeck effect and slow dynamics due to decoupling of the electrons from the lattice phonons. The origin of the transition is tentatively interpreted in terms of many-body localization, which has not been observed previously in a solid-state material.

DOI
10.1038/s41467-023-42858-3

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Abstract A promising route to discover exotic electronic states in correlated electron systems is to vary the hole or electron doping away from a Mott insulating state. Important examples include quantum criticality and high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates. Here, we report the surprising discovery of a quantum insulating state upon electron doping the Mott insulator CeMnAsO, which emerges below a distinct critical transition temperature, TII. The insulator-insulator transition is accompanied by a significant reduction in electron mobility as well as a colossal Seebeck effect and slow dynamics due to decoupling of the electrons from the lattice phonons. The origin of the transition is tentatively interpreted in terms of many-body localization, which has not been observed previously in a solid-state material.
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Metallic quantum states coined strange metal (SM), with robust linear-TTT resistivity, have been widely observed in many quantum materials under strong electron correlations, ranging from high-Tc{T}_{c}Tc​ cuprate superconductors and organic superconductors to twisted multilayer graphene and MoTe2/WSe2{\mathrm{MoTe}}_{2}/{\mathrm{WSe}}_{2}MoTe2​/WSe2​ superlattices. Despite decades of intensive studies, the mystery of SM still defies any sensible theoretical explanation and has been a key puzzle in modern condensed matter physics. Here, we solve a doped Mott insulator model called an Ising-Kondo lattice, which includes static spin fluctuation. With Monte Carlo simulation, the Ising-Kondo lattice unambiguously exhibits SM phenomena accompanied with quantum critical scaling in observables, e.g., resistivity, susceptibility, and specific heat. A closer look at SM reveals the breakdown of Landau's Fermi liquid theory without any symmetry breaking, i.e., the violation of Luttinger theorem. Our paper reveals that the long-overlooked static fluctuations in literature may play an essential role in non-Fermi liquid behaviors in correlated electron systems.
Metallic states near the Mott insulator show a variety of quantum phases, including various magnetic, charge-ordered states and high-temperature superconductivity in various transition metal oxides and organic solids. The emergence of a variety of phases and their competitions are likely intimately associated with quantum transitions between the electron-correlation-driven Mott insulator and metals characterized by its criticality, and is related to many central questions of condensed matter. The quantum criticality is, however, not well understood when the transition is controlled by the bandwidth through physical parameters such as pressure. Here, we quantitatively estimate the universality class of the transition characterized by a comprehensive set of critical exponents by using a variational Monte Carlo method implemented as an open-source innovated quantum many-body solver, with the help of established scaling laws at a typical bandwidth-controlled Mott transition. The criticality indicates a weaker charge and density instability in contrast to the filling-controlled transition realized by carrier doping, implying a weaker instability to superconductivity as well. The present comprehensive clarification opens up a number of routes for quantitative experimental studies for complete understanding of elusive quantum Mott transition and nearby strange metal that cultivate future design of functionality.
New trial wave functions, constructed explicitly from the unique Mott insulating state with antiferromagnetic order, are proposed to describe the ground state of a Mott insulator slightly doped with holes or electrons. A rigid band is observed as charged quasiparticles with well-defined momenta being realized in these states. These states have much less superconducting correlations than previously studied ones. Small Fermi patches obtained are consistent with recent experiments on high T(c) cuprates doped lightly with holes or electrons.
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High-temperature superconductivity emerges upon doping a state of matter that is insulating because of interactions. A widely studied model considers one orbital per CuO2{\mathrm{CuO}}_{2}CuO2​ unit cell on a square lattice with a strong intraorbital repulsion that leads to a so-called Mott-Hubbard insulator. Here we solve a model that takes into account, within each unit cell, two oxygen orbitals where there is no electron-electron repulsion and a copper orbital with strong electron-electron repulsion. The insulating phase is a so-called charge-transfer insulator, not a Mott-Hubbard insulator. Using cluster dynamical mean-field theory with continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo as an impurity solver and 12 atoms per cluster, we report the normal and superconducting phase diagram of this model as a function of doping, interaction strength, and temperature. As expected, the three-orbital model is consistent with the experimental observation that doped holes are located predominantly on oxygens, a result that goes beyond the one-orbital model. Nevertheless, the phase boundary between pseudogap and correlated metal, the Widom line, and the origin of the pairing energy (kinetic vs potential) are similar to the one-orbital model, demonstrating that these are emergent phenomena characteristic of doped Mott insulators, independently of many microscopic details. Broader implications are discussed.