2018/12/24 by Soonmin Kang, Yi Tseng, Beom Hyun Kim +13 · 19 citations
Chemistry · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Atomic orbital #Atomic physics #Chemistry #Condensed matter physics #Crystallography #Electron #Electronic and Structural Properties of Oxides #Electronic structure #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Spectral line #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.99.045113
published in Physical review. B./Physical review. B 99(4) (American Physical Society) · 7 pages, 7 figures
arxiv created 2018/12/24 · openalex created_date 2019/01/01 · openalex publication_date 2019/01/07 · arxiv updated 2019/01/30 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The electronic structure of SrRuO3 thin film with a thickness from 1 to 50 unit cell (u.c.) is investigated via the resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) technique at the O K edge to unravel the intriguing interplay of orbital and charge degrees of freedom. We found that the orbital-selective quantum confinement effect (QCE) induces the splitting of Ru 4d orbitals. At the same time, we observed a clear suppression of the electron-hole continuum across the metal-to-insulator transition occurring in the 4-u.c. sample. From these two clear observations we conclude that the QCE gives rise to a Mott insulating phase in ultrathin SrRuO3 films. Our interpretation of the RIXS spectra is supported by the configuration interaction calculations of RuO6 clusters.