Upon reduction of the film thickness we observe a metal-insulator transition in epitaxially stabilized, spin-orbit coupled SrIrO3 ultrathin films. By comparison of the experimental electronic dispersions with density functional theory at various levels of complexity we identify the leading microscopic mechanisms, i.e., a dimensionality-induced re-adjustment of octahedral rotations, magnetism, and electronic correlations. The astonishing resemblance of the band structure in the two-dimensional limit to that of bulk Sr2IrO4 opens new avenues to unconventional superconductivity by "clean" electron doping through electric field gating.
@article{arxiv.1706.09694,
title = {Dimensionality-driven metal-insulator-transition in spin-orbit coupled SrIrO$_3$},
author = {P. Schütz and D. Di Sante and L. Dudy and J. Gabel and M. Stübinger and M. Kamp and Y. Huang and M. Capone and M. -A. Husanu and V. Strocov and G. Sangiovanni and M. Sing and R. Claessen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.09694},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
6 pages, 4 figures, cf. arXiv:1706.08901 for a recent complementary study