Probing momentum-resolved electronic structure of buried artificial graphenelike Mott crystal NdNiO3 [111] with soft x-ray angle-resolved photoemission

ORAL

Abstract

Transition metal oxides (TMO) exhibit a wide variety of potentially advantageous strongly-correlated electronic phenomena such as metal-insulator transitions, high-Tc superconductivity, half-metallicity, etc. Until now, however, most of the work has been focused on synthesizing and investigating systems that are grown along the [001] pseudocubic direction. Here we utilize soft x-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to investigate the momentum-resolved valence-band electronic structure of artificial graphenelike Mott crystal NdNiO3 grown along the [111] direction. Our measurements reveal broken six-fold symmetry of the Ni 3d eg states hosted on a buckled honeycomb lattice. This engineered electronic structure is unique to the ultrathin (2 u.c.) quazi-2D crystal, and cannot be realized either in the bulk or in the thin-film Nickelate grown along the conventional [001] direction. Our findings open the door for engineering novel polarized Mott-electronic ground states in rare-earth Nickelates, as well as other strongly-correlated transition-metal oxides.

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Authors

  • Arian Arab

    Department of Physics, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA, Department of Physics, Temple University, Phialdelphia, PA, USA

  • Weibing Yang

    Department of Physics, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA, Department of Physics, Temple University, Phialdelphia, PA, USA

  • Ravini Chandrasena

    Department of Physics, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA, Department of Physics, Temple University, Phialdelphia, PA, USA

  • Srimanta Middey

    Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA

  • Vladimir Strokov

    Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland, Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland

  • Kristjan Haule

    Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA, Rutgers Univ

  • Jak Chakhalian

    Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA

  • Alexander Gray

    Department of Physics, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA, Department of Physics, Temple University, Phialdelphia, PA, USA