Overcoming the thermal regime for the electric-field driven Mott transition in vanadium sesquioxide.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30858368.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-09137-6 and PMC identifier 6411733.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The complex interplay among electronic, magnetic and lattice degrees of freedom in Mott-Hubbard materials leads to different types of insulator-to-metal transitions (IMT) which can be triggered by temperature, pressure, light irradiation and electric field. However, several questions remain open concerning the quantum or thermal nature of electric field-driven transition process. Here, using intense terahertz pulses, we reveal the emergence of an instantaneous purely-electronic IMT in the Mott-Hubbard vanadium sequioxide (V<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>) prototype material. While fast electronics allow thermal-driven transition involving Joule heating, which takes place after tens of picoseconds, terahertz electric field is able to induce a sub-picosecond electronic switching. We provide a comprehensive study of the THz induced Mott transition, showing a crossover from a fast quantum dynamics to a slower thermal dissipative evolution for increasing temperature. Strong-field terahertz-driven electronic transition paves the way to ultrafast electronic switches and high-harmonic generation in correlated systems.