Nanoscale self-organization and metastable non-thermal metallicity in Mott insulators

Andrea Ronchi (), Paolo Franceschini, Andrea Poli, Pía Homm, Ann Fitzpatrick, Francesco Maccherozzi, Gabriele Ferrini, Francesco Banfi, Sarnjeet S. Dhesi, Mariela Menghini, Michele Fabrizio (), Jean-Pierre Locquet and Claudio Giannetti ()
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Andrea Ronchi: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Paolo Franceschini: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Andrea Poli: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Pía Homm: KU Leuven
Ann Fitzpatrick: Diamond Light Source
Francesco Maccherozzi: Diamond Light Source
Gabriele Ferrini: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Francesco Banfi: Université de Lyon, CNRS, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Institut Lumière Matière
Sarnjeet S. Dhesi: Diamond Light Source
Mariela Menghini: KU Leuven
Michele Fabrizio: Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA)
Jean-Pierre Locquet: KU Leuven
Claudio Giannetti: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract Mott transitions in real materials are first order and almost always associated with lattice distortions, both features promoting the emergence of nanotextured phases. This nanoscale self-organization creates spatially inhomogeneous regions, which can host and protect transient non-thermal electronic and lattice states triggered by light excitation. Here, we combine time-resolved X-ray microscopy with a Landau-Ginzburg functional approach for calculating the strain and electronic real-space configurations. We investigate V2O3, the archetypal Mott insulator in which nanoscale self-organization already exists in the low-temperature monoclinic phase and strongly affects the transition towards the high-temperature corundum metallic phase. Our joint experimental-theoretical approach uncovers a remarkable out-of-equilibrium phenomenon: the photo-induced stabilisation of the long sought monoclinic metal phase, which is absent at equilibrium and in homogeneous materials, but emerges as a metastable state solely when light excitation is combined with the underlying nanotexture of the monoclinic lattice.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31298-0

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