Substrate-tuning of correlated spin-orbit oxides revealed by optical conductivity calculations

Author(s)
Bongjae Kim, Beom Hyun Kim, Kyoo Kim, B. I. Min
Abstract

We have systematically investigated substrate-strain effects on the electronic structures of two representative Sr-iridates, a correlated-insulator Sr2IrO4 and a metal SrIrO3. Optical conductivities obtained by the ab initio electronic structure calculations reveal that the tensile strain shifts the optical peak positions to higher energy side with altered intensities, suggesting the enhancement of the electronic correlation and spin-orbit coupling (SOC) strength in Sr-iridates. The response of the electronic structure upon tensile strain is found to be highly correlated with the direction of magnetic moment, the octahedral connectivity, and the SOC strength, which cooperatively determine the robustness of J(eff) = 1/2 ground states. Optical responses are analyzed also with microscopic model calculation and compared with corresponding experiments. In the case of SrIrO3, the evolution of the electronic structure near the Fermi level shows high tunability of hole bands, as suggested by previous experiments.

Organisation(s)
Computational Materials Physics
External organisation(s)
Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Ulmer Fundamental Symmetries Laboratory
Journal
Scientific Reports
Volume
6
No. of pages
11
ISSN
2045-2322
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep27095
Publication date
06-2016
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103009 Solid state physics, 103015 Condensed matter, 103025 Quantum mechanics, 103036 Theoretical physics
Keywords
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/65cafe06-4709-4302-9052-94f684fb7041