Orbital and spin character of doped carriers in infinite-layer nickelates

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.104.L220505

Authors: M. Rossi (SLAC National Accelerator Laborator) , H. Lu (SLAC National Accelerator Laborator; Stanford University) , A. Nag (Diamond Light Source) , D. Li (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Stanford University) , M. Osada (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Stanford University) , K. Lee (SLAC National Accelerator Laborator; Stanford University) , B. Y. Wang (SLAC National Accelerator Laborator; Stanford University) , S. Agrestini (Diamond Light Source) , Mirian Garcia-Fernandez (Diamond Light Source) , J. J. Kas (University of Washington; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , Y.-D. Chuang (Advanced Light Source) , Z. X. Shen (SLAC National Accelerator Laborator; Stanford University) , H. Y. Hwang (SLAC National Accelerator Laborator; Stanford University) , B. Moritz (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) , Ke-Jin Zhou (Diamond Light Source) , T. P. Devereaux (SLAC National Accelerator Laborator; Stanford University) , W. S. Lee (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Physical Review B , VOL 104

State: Published (Approved)
Published: December 2021
Diamond Proposal Number(s): 25165

Abstract: The recent discovery of superconductivity in Nd1−xSrxNiO2 has drawn significant attention in the field. A key open question regards the evolution of the electronic structure with respect to hole doping. Here we exploit x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) to probe the doping-dependent electronic structure of Nd1−xSrxNiO. Upon doping, a high-energy feature in Ni L3-edge XAS develops in addition to the main absorption peak, while XAS at the O K-, Nd M3- and Nd M5-edge exhibits a much weaker response. This implies that doped holes are mainly introduced into Ni 3 d states. By comparing our data to atomic multiplet calculations including D4h crystal field, the doping-induced feature in Ni L3-edge XAS is consistent with a d 8 spin-singlet state in which doped holes reside in the 3dx2−y2 orbitals. This is further supported by the softening of RIXS orbital excitations due to doping, corroborating with the Fermi level shift associated with increasing holes in the Ni 3dx2−y2 orbital.

Journal Keywords: Electronic structure; Impurities in superconductors; Superconducting gap; Superconducting phase transition; Cuprates; Thin films; Methods in superconductivity; Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering; X-ray absorption spectroscopy

Subject Areas: Materials, Physics


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

Other Facilities: Advanced Light Source

Added On: 13/12/2021 11:53

Discipline Tags:

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

Technical Tags:

Scattering Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering (RIXS)