Electronic structure of the parent compound of superconducting infinite-layer nickelates

DOI: 10.1038/s41563-019-0585-z

Authors: M. Hepting (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , D. Li (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , C. J. Jia (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , H. Lu (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , E. Paris (Swiss Light Source) , Y. Tseng (Swiss Light Source) , X. Feng (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , M. Osada (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , E. Been (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , Y. Hikita (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , Y.-D. Chuang (Advanced Light Source) , Z. Hussain (Advanced Light Source) , K. J. Zhou (Diamond Light Source; Swiss Light Source) , A. Nag (Diamond Light Source) , M. Garcia-Fernandez (Diamond Light Source) , M. Rossi (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , H. Y. Huang (NSRRC) , D. J. Huang (NSRRC) , Z. X. Shen (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Stanford University) , T. Schmitt (Swiss Light Source) , H. Y. Hwang (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , B. Moritz (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , J. Zaanen (Leiden University) , T. P. Devereaux (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , W. S. Lee (Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Nature Materials , VOL 59

State: Published (Approved)
Published: January 2020
Diamond Proposal Number(s): 22009

Abstract: The search continues for nickel oxide-based materials with electronic properties similar to cuprate high-temperature superconductors. The recent discovery of superconductivity in the doped infinite-layer nickelate NdNiO2 has strengthened these efforts. Here, we use X-ray spectroscopy and density functional theory to show that the electronic structure of LaNiO2 and NdNiO2, while similar to the cuprates, includes significant distinctions. Unlike cuprates, the rare-earth spacer layer in the infinite-layer nickelate supports a weakly interacting three-dimensional 5d metallic state, which hybridizes with a quasi-two-dimensional, strongly correlated state with 3 d x 2 − y 2 3dx2−y2 symmetry in the NiO2 layers. Thus, the infinite-layer nickelate can be regarded as a sibling of the rare-earth intermetallics, which are well known for heavy fermion behaviour, where the NiO2 correlated layers play an analogous role to the 4f states in rare-earth heavy fermion compounds. This Kondo- or Anderson-lattice-like ‘oxide-intermetallic’ replaces the Mott insulator as the reference state from which superconductivity emerges upon doping.

Subject Areas: Materials, Physics


Instruments: I21-Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering (RIXS)

Other Facilities: Swiss Light Source; Advanced Light Source

Added On: 22/01/2020 14:59

Discipline Tags:

Surfaces Superconductors Quantum Materials Physics Hard condensed matter - structures Materials Science interfaces and thin films

Technical Tags:

Scattering Spectroscopy Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering (RIXS) X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS)