Tuning bad metal and non-Fermi liquidbehavior in a Mott material: Rare-earth nickelate thin films

Abstract

Resistances that exceed the Mott-Ioffe-Regel limit (known as bad metal behavior) and non-Fermi liquid behavior are ubiquitous features of the normal state of many strongly correlated materials. We establish the conditions that lead to bad metal and non-Fermi liquid phases in NdNiO3, which exhibits a prototype bandwidth-controlled metal insulator transition. We show that resistance saturation is determined by the magnitude of Ni eg orbital splitting, which can be tuned by strain in epitaxial films, causing the appearance of bad metal behavior under certain conditions. The results shed light on the nature of a crossover to a non-Fermi liquid metal phase and provide a predictive criterion for Anderson localization. They elucidate a seemingly complex phase behavior as a function of film strain and confinement and provide guidelines for orbital engineering and novel devices.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 06, 2015
Accession Number
AD1069124

Entities

People

  • Adam J. Hauser
  • Anderson Janotti
  • Burak Himmetoglu
  • Chris G. Van de Walle
  • Evgeny Mikheev
  • Nelson E. Moreno
  • Susanne Stemmer

Organizations

  • University of California

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Chemistry
  • Computational Chemistry Methods
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Crystal Lattices
  • Electron Scattering
  • Fermi Surfaces
  • Films
  • High Temperature
  • Materials
  • Military Research
  • Phase Diagrams
  • Phase Transformations
  • Quantum Properties
  • Resistance
  • Scattering
  • Tensile Strain
  • Thin Films

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Materials Science and Engineering.
  • Quantum Dot Semiconductor Device Photonics and Graphene Optoelectronic Materials and THz Physics.
  • Systems Analysis and Design

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Graphene
  • Space