Search arXiv⌕ Search

arXiv · cond-mat/0511138

Polarons and confinement of electronic motion to two dimensions in a layered transition metal oxide

Abstract

A very remarkable feature of the layered transition metal oxides (TMOs), whose most famous members are the high-temperature superconductors (HTSs), is that even though they are prepared as bulk three-dimensional single crystals, they display hugely anisotropic electrical and optical properties, seeming to be insulating perpendicular to the layers and metallic within them. This is the phenomenon of confinement, a concept at odds with the conventional theory of solids and recognized as due to magnetic and electron-lattice interactions in the layers which must be overcome at a substantial energy cost if electrons are to be transferred between layers. The associated energy gap or 'pseudogap' is particularly obvious in experiments where charge is moved perpendicular to the planes, most notably scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and polarized infrared spectroscopy. Here, using the same experimental tools, we show that there is a second family of TMOs - the layered manganites La2-2xSr1+2xMn2O7 (LSMO) - with even more extreme confinement and pseudogap effects. The data, which are the first to resolve atoms in any metallic manganite, demonstrate quantitatively that because they are attached to polarons - lattice and spin textures within the planes -, it is equally difficult to remove carriers from the planes via vacuum tunneling into a conventional metallic tip, as it is for them to move between Mn-rich layers within the material itself.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

H. M. Ronnow, Ch. Renner, G. Aeppli, T. Kimura, Y. Tokura. 2005-11-05. Polarons and confinement of electronic motion to two dimensions in a layered transition metal oxide. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04650

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Observable-Based Learning of Effective Entanglement Hamiltonians

Determining the entanglement Hamiltonian (EH) of an interacting quantum many-body system remains a fundamental challenge beyond special analytically tractable cases. Here we develop an observable-matching framework for learning effective EHs, which we demonstrate using response estimates from quantum Monte Carlo. As applications of this framework, we first calibrate the overall prefactor of the lattice Bisognano--Wichmann (LBW) construction using equal-time correlations and then learn spatially resolved couplings beyond its prescribed profile, without assuming a specific functional form for their spatial dependence. Trained solely on local correlations, the learned EHs reproduce benchmarked von Neumann and second Rényi entropies in $1$D and second Rényi entropies in $2$D. For a strong-bond cut associated with special surface criticality at the $(2+1)$D $O(3)$ Wilson--Fisher critical point, free-form learning outperforms the calibrated LBW ansatz in predicting the second Rényi entropy and reveals spatially nonuniform coupling renormalizations. Importantly, the learned EH also provides access to the von Neumann entropy in this setting, revealing a negative subleading correction and extending previous Rényi entropy findings to the von Neumann case. Directly evaluating the von Neumann entropy in such $(2+1)$D interacting quantum many-body systems remains challenging for conventional numerical methods. These results establish observable-based learning as a route to constructing effective entanglement Hamiltonians beyond prescribed spatial profiles in higher-dimensional interacting systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Extensions of the Haldane gap proof: higher dimensions, near degeneracy, fermions and tensor-network states

A recent remarkable paper by OpenAI showed that the spin-one Heisenberg chain with periodic boundary conditions has a spectral gap in the thermodynamic limit. The proof elegantly deduces this gap from the Hamiltonian's spectrum on a finite system. This basic idea is an inequality involving the purity of the original Gibbs state and a dual Gibbs state that is defined via space-time rotation. Here we consider a few generalizations of this purity bootstrap argument. We first extend it to arbitrary spatial dimensions. Our main result uses the space-time duality between symmetry generators and symmetry twists to obtain upper bounds on the splitting of nearly degenerate low-energy states, together with a nonzero gap above them, from finite-system information. As applications, we show that finite-system calculations for the 2+1-D toric code in a field and the 2+1-D transverse-field Ising model establish parameter regimes with four and two low-lying states whose splittings are bounded from above by $e^{-cL}$ and $e^{-cL^2}$ respectively for arbitrarily large system size $L$, while the gap above these states remains nonzero in the thermodynamic limit. Next, we extend it to fermionic systems and use a finite calculation to establish a symmetric mass generation phase in a $2+1$-D fermionic model. Finally, we apply the bootstrap to tensor-network states and establish exponential decay of connected correlations of all local operators in the symmetric square-lattice spin-one state introduced by Jian and Zaletel.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Interfacial polarity control of anomalous Hall effect in LaCoO3-SrIrO3 heterostructures

Interfacial polarity in oxide heterostructures can drive robust charge redistribution across the interface, yet its role in tailoring topological transport phenomena like the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) remains largely unexplored. Here, we control the sign of polarity-induced charge in SrIrO3-LaCoO3 interfaces by independently engineering the layer stacking sequence and the atomic termination. In-situ angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy directly confirms the sign reversal of the induced charge in SrIrO3 through the contrasting electronic band shifts between different interfacial configurations. Magneto-transport measurements across a systematic matrix of four distinct heterostructures reveal that the AHE can be cleanly toggled on and off: it emerges exclusively under electron-doped conditions, while remaining suppressed for hole-doped SrIrO3. Our results establish that this response originates from an intrinsic, Berry-curvature-driven mechanism governed by polarity-controlled band filling of SrIrO3. These findings shift interfacial polarity from a passive structural consequence to an active design variable for engineering topological quantum states in oxide heterostructures.

cond-mat.str-el↗