Yang Haifeng, Gao Jingjing, Cao Yingying, Xu Yuanji, Liang Aiji, Xu Xiang, Chen Yujie, Liu Shuai, Huang Kui, Xu Lixuan, Wang Chengwei, Cui Shengtao, Wang Meixiao, Yang Lexian, Luo Xuan, Sun Yuping, Yang Yi-Feng, Liu Zhongkai, Chen Yulin
School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, China.
Key Laboratory of Materials Physics, Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China.
Natl Sci Rev. 2023 Feb 28;10(6):nwad035. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwad035. eCollection 2023 Jun.
Mott physics plays a critical role in materials with strong electronic correlations. Mott insulator-to-metal transition can be driven by chemical doping, external pressure, temperature and gate voltage, which is often seen in transition metal oxides with electrons near the Fermi energy (e.g. cuprate superconductor). In -electron systems, however, the insulator-to-metal transition is mostly driven by Kondo hybridization and the Mott physics has rarely been explored in experiments. Here, by combining the angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and strongly correlated band structure calculations, we show that an unusual Mott instability exists in YbInCu accompanying its mysterious first-order valence transition. This contrasts with the prevalent Kondo picture and demonstrates that YbInCu is a unique platform to explore the Mott physics in Kondo lattice systems. Our work provides important insight for the understanding and manipulation of correlated quantum phenomena in the -electron system.
莫特物理在具有强电子关联的材料中起着关键作用。莫特绝缘体到金属的转变可以由化学掺杂、外部压力、温度和栅极电压驱动，这在费米能量附近有电子的过渡金属氧化物中经常出现（例如铜酸盐超导体）。然而，在电子系统中，绝缘体到金属的转变主要由近藤杂化驱动，并且莫特物理在实验中很少被探索。在这里，通过结合角分辨光电子能谱和强关联能带结构计算，我们表明在YbInCu中伴随着其神秘的一级价态转变存在一种不寻常的莫特不稳定性。这与普遍的近藤图像形成对比，并表明YbInCu是探索近藤晶格系统中莫特物理的独特平台。我们的工作为理解和操纵电子系统中的关联量子现象提供了重要的见解。
