Quantum criticality of excitonic Mott metal-insulator transitions in black phosphorus

Quantum phase transition refers to the abrupt change of ground states of many-body systems driven by quantum fluctuations. It hosts various intriguing exotic states around its quantum critical points approaching zero temperature. Here we report the spectroscopic and transport evidences of quantum cr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2022-12, Vol.13 (1), p.7797-7797, Article 7797
Main Authors: Zheng, Binjie, Wang, Junzhuan, Wang, Qianghua, Su, Xin, Huang, Tianye, Li, Songlin, Wang, Fengqiu, Shi, Yi, Wang, Xiaomu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
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142/126
639/624/399/918/1054
639/766/119/2795
639/925/357/1018
Critical phenomena
Critical point
Electronics industry
Excitons
Fourier transforms
Holes (electron deficiencies)
Humanities and Social Sciences
Insulators
Metal-insulator transition
multidisciplinary
Phase diagrams
Phase transitions
Phosphorus
Population inversion
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Semiconductors
Spectroscopy
Superconductivity
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Summary:Quantum phase transition refers to the abrupt change of ground states of many-body systems driven by quantum fluctuations. It hosts various intriguing exotic states around its quantum critical points approaching zero temperature. Here we report the spectroscopic and transport evidences of quantum critical phenomena of an exciton Mott metal-insulator-transition in black phosphorus. Continuously tuning the interplay of electron-hole pairs by photo-excitation and using Fourier-transform photo-current spectroscopy as a probe, we measure a comprehensive phase diagram of electron-hole states in temperature and electron-hole pair density parameter space. We characterize an evolution from optical insulator with sharp excitonic transition to metallic electron-hole plasma phases featured by broad absorption and population inversion. We also observe strange metal behavior that resistivity is linear in temperature near the Mott transition boundaries. Our results exemplify an ideal platform to investigating strongly-correlated physics in semiconductors, such as crossover between superconductivity and superfluity of exciton condensation. The exciton Mott transition refers to a transition from an insulating state of gas-like excitons to strongly correlated electron-hole plasma phases in photoexcited semiconductors. Here the authors experimentally study such a transition in black phosphorus and reveal its quantum critical properties.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-022-35567-w