Orbital-assisted metal-insulator transition in VO2

We found direct experimental evidence for an orbital switching in the V 3d states across the metal-insulator transition in VO2. We have used soft-x-ray absorption spectroscopy at the V L2,3 edges as a sensitive local probe and have determined quantitatively the orbital polarizations. These results s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2005-11, Vol.95 (19), p.196404-196404
Main Authors: Haverkort, M W, Hu, Z, Tanaka, A, Reichelt, W, Streltsov, S V, Korotin, M A, Anisimov, V I, Hsieh, H H, Lin, H-J, Chen, C T, Khomskii, D I, Tjeng, L H
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:We found direct experimental evidence for an orbital switching in the V 3d states across the metal-insulator transition in VO2. We have used soft-x-ray absorption spectroscopy at the V L2,3 edges as a sensitive local probe and have determined quantitatively the orbital polarizations. These results strongly suggest that, in going from the metallic to the insulating state, the orbital occupation changes in a manner that charge fluctuations and effective bandwidths are reduced, that the system becomes more one dimensional and more susceptible to a Peierls-like transition, and that the required massive orbital switching can only be made if the system is close to a Mott insulating regime.
ISSN:0031-9007
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.196404