Universality of pseudogap and emergent order in lightly doped Mott insulators

It is widely believed that high-temperature superconductivity in the cuprates emerges from doped Mott insulators1. When extra carriers are inserted into the parent state, the electrons become mobile but the strong correlations from the Mott state are thought to surviveinhomogeneous electronic order,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature physics 2017-01, Vol.13 (1), p.21-25
Main Authors: Battisti, I., Bastiaans, K. M., Fedoseev, V., de la Torre, A., Iliopoulos, N., Tamai, A., Hunter, E. C., Perry, R. S., Zaanen, J., Baumberger, F., Allan, M. P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carriers
Cuprates
Dopants
Doping
Electronics
Electrons
Evolution
Insulation
Insulators
Superconductivity
Temperature
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Summary:It is widely believed that high-temperature superconductivity in the cuprates emerges from doped Mott insulators1. When extra carriers are inserted into the parent state, the electrons become mobile but the strong correlations from the Mott state are thought to surviveinhomogeneous electronic order, a mysterious pseudogap and, eventually, superconductivity appear. How the insertion of dopant atoms drives this evolution is not known, nor is whether these phenomena are mere distractions specic to hole-doped cuprates or represent genuine physics of doped Mott insulators. Here we visualize the evolution of the electronic states of (Sr1xLax)2IrO4, which is an effective spin-1/2 Mott insulator like the cuprates, but is chemically radically dierent2,3. Using spectroscopic-imaging scanning tunnelling microscopy (SI-STM), we nd that for a doping concentration of x 5%, an inhomogeneous, phase-separated state emerges, with the nucleation of pseudogap puddles around clusters of dopant atoms. Within these puddles, we observe the same iconic electronic order that is seen in underdoped cuprates1,49. We investigate the genesis of this state and nd evidence at low doping for deeply trapped carriers, leading to fully gapped spectra, which abruptly collapse at a threshold of x4%. Our results clarify the melting of the Mott state, and establish phase separation and electronic order as generic features of doped Mott insulators.
ISSN:1745-2473
1745-2481
DOI:10.1038/nphys3894