Search

We present a simultaneous photoemission spectroscopic, low-energy electron diffraction and low-energy electron microscopic study of the metal-insulator transition of strained VO2. The fraction of rutile structure is extracted from the microscopic measurements throughout the transition, and compared with the fraction of the metallic electrons from photoemission data. We find that at intermediate temperatures, while the system is predominantly monoclinic-like in structure, the electronic component of the transition is much further advanced. Our results provide direct evidence for a monoclinic-like metallic phase of VO2 that is easily accessible at ambient temperatures and pressures.

We present a detailed depth-sensitive study of the evolution in correlated electron behavior from the surface of the prototypical correlated oxide, SrxCa1-xVO3, to its bulk. Photoemission measurements of varying surface sensitivity are employed to directly compare both the spectral weight and energetics of the correlated electron features, and resonant soft x-ray emission spectroscopy is used as a bulk-sensitive reference. The surface component, which still contributes significantly to photoemission at 2.2 keV, is characterized by a transfer of spectral weight into the incoherent lower Hubbard band and the corresponding shift of these states towards lower binding energy.