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FT
the electronic and lattice contributions. In bulk NdNiO3 the correla-
tions are not strong enough to drive a metal-insulator transition by
themselves: a lattice distortion is required. Ultra-thin films exhibit
two additional electronic effects and one lattice-related effect. The
electronic effects are quantum confinement, leading to dimensional
reduction of the electronic Hamiltonian, and an increase in electronic
RA
bandwidth due to counterlayer induced bond angle changes. We find Fig. 1. : Heterostructuring NdNiO3 with NdAlO3 : structural distortions are repre-
that the confinement effect is much more important. The lattice effect sented as motion (not to scale) of oxygen ions (red circles) away from center of Ni-Ni
is an increase in stiffness due to the cost of propagation of the lattice and Ni-Al bonds; note that the distortions do not propagate significantly into the Al
disproportionation into the confining material. layers are are of reduced amplitudes along the Ni-Al bonds. The different colors of
the Ni atoms represent the electronic disproportionation. The kinetic energy of the Ni
transition metal oxide | metal-insulator transition | heterostructure | eg electrons is reduced by confinement, as electrons are not allowed to hop through
the insulating NAO layers (|t0 |«|t‹ |,|tÎ |), while |tÎ | < |t‹ | due to propagation of bond
epitaxial constraint | structural modulation | layer confinement
angles from NdAlO3 .
D
FT
and the absence of a driving force on the interfacial oxygen
from the aluminum atom. In our effective model, this leads to
an increased effective stiffnes of the bond disproportionation
mode as the same force from the nickel atoms leads to a lower
average oxygen displacement. On the electronic structure,
the layer confinement of the material leads to suppressed
RA
hopping along the z direction, while the propagation of bond
angles from NAO to NNO leads to a small increase of the
Ni-Ni hopping in-plane as compared to the out-of-plane Ni-Ni
hopping in the bilayer.
kQ2 1
E(Q, N) = ≠ gQ N + Eel ( N ) [1]
2 2
Fig. 2. Left: Schematic of bulk NNO and NAO (ignoring octahedral rotations).
The first term is the elastic energy cost of establishing the Right: Schematic of the bond disproportionation modes in the NNO bilayer and its
lattice distortion, the middle term is the leading symmetry propagation into nearby NAO layers, projected on the Ni-Ni and Ni-Al direction, as
allowed coupling between the structural and electronic order discussed in the main text for a bilayer structure with the average Q=0.078 Å- similar
to the Q of the experimental bulk low T structure.
parameters, and the final term is the energy associated with
the electronic transition. The three control parameters are
thus k, g and the combination of interaction parameters and The parameter g that relates the bond disproportionation
bandwidths that determines Eel ( N ). A detailed description Q to the on-site field difference between the two inequivalent
of the process by which we fix the control parameters is given Ni atoms ( S = gQ) is obtained from its value as obtained
in the Appendix B; here we summarize the findings and give from DFT alone g DF T as described in the supplement, and
physical interpretations. adjusted for double counting as g = g DF T (1 + (U ≠ 53 J)‰0 )
In a previous work on bulk perovskites, the structural stiff- with ‰0 = ˆˆ NS
the electronic susceptibility as extracted from
ness parameter k was found to vary only slightly as the rare DFT. The value of g DF T is relatively constant between the
earth ion was changed (8). We find that heterostructuring bulk and heterostructured materials, and has been previously
has a stronger effect, with k increasing from k=15.86eV/Å2 shown to be constant throughout the RNiO3 family. However,
for bulk NNO, to 17.71eV/Å2 for the bilayer structure and as ‰0 is related to the inverse of the bandwidth, the ratio of
20.18eV/Å2 for the monolayer. The fundamental difference the g across the materials changes slightly depending on the
between bulk and layered systems appears at the interface be- choice of U,J.
tween the two components of the heterostructure. A schematic Finally, N is obtained from dynamical mean field cal-
of the bond disproportionation mode in the bilayer as obtained culations that require as input values of on-site interaction
‰bulk
0 0 = 1.25/eV , ‰monolayer
0
FT
way to estimate the effect of the change in bandwidth is by
comparing the static electronic response to an on-site field in
our eg tight-binding model, ‰0 as defined previously. We get
= 1.16/eV , ‰bilayer = 1.39/eV .
RA
D
The dominant effect of the layering in the case of the Fig. 4. Projected density of states of low-energy eg Wannier bands for GGA-relaxed
structures for bulk (top), bilayer (middle) and monolayer (bottom) structures. Dotted
heterostructures is electronic confinement: electron hopping horizontal lines show approximate cutoff for determining bandwidths mentioned in
is confined to be in-plane only for the NNO monolayer, and main text. Confinement greatly reduces the bandwidth of the 3z2 -r2 orbital, however
confined between the two layers for the bilayer. While the bulk the bond angle propagation leads to a slightly wider bandwidth of the x2 -y2 orbital.
orbitals have a bandwidth of 2.6eV, the 3z2 -r2 orbital for the
monolayer has a bandwidth of 1.85eV and for the bilayer 2.15eV. We have then found three main effects of heterostructuring
Two other, more minor effects appear as well. Similar to on the electronic structure. The effect of layer confinement
2k
Q=
FT
3 gives N as a function of Q, as obtained via the density
functional plus dynamical mean field theory (DFT+DMFT)
method.
Combining the two, we have an equation of state:
N [Q] [4] Fig. 5. N versus bond disproportionation Q within DFT+DMFT for bulk, bilayer
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g and monolayer structures as well as Q versus N lines from the total energy model
calculation in different areas of the phase space as determined by equation 2 and
The N (Q) relation is shown in Figure 5 as large symbols equation 3 via DFT+DMFT as described in the main text. The thick circles mark the
connected by lines for U = 2.1eV and three J values. For intersections that respect the equation of state 4. The panels marked with A,B,C
the smallest J value neither the bulk nor the superlattice correspond to the points marked with stars in the phase diagram in Fig. 3
materials show a spontaneous disproportionation at Q = 0;
for small Q there is a regime in which the disproportionation
is linear in Q and the solution remains metallic. Above a is nearly constant in the insulating phase N ¥ Ninsulating , Q
is then set by optimizing the structure Q[ N ] in equation [4] as
D
FT
These general results can be used both to understand other
similar heterostructures (for example LaNiO3 /LaAlO3 ) as well
as to design new materials. Our analysis of the bond dispro-
portionation mode on the interfacial structure in this class
of materials as well as in related classes of materials (vana-
dates, manganites etc) can be studied both theoretically and
ˆEDF T
ˆQ
= cQ. However in the DFT calculations N is relaxed
at each Q . Referring to equation 2 we have on the DFT level
(and noting the stationarity with respect to N ):
cQ =
ˆEDF T
ˆQ
1
= kQ ≠ g DF T
2
N (Q) [7]
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experimentally. The combination of bond angles, confinement The parameter g DF T is defined in terms of the average on
and relative structural stiffness can be used to fine tune metal- site energy DF
S
T
obtained from our Wannier fits to DFT band
insulator transition temperatures. Based on the methodology DF T
structures as g DF T = SQ and N (Q) is obtained from the
in this work and previous work (3, 8), future work involving occupancy difference of the Wannier orbitals and is found to be
DFT+DMFT, DFT+U studies and model calculations, can linear in Q, N = ‰0 g DF T Q. This relation defines the on-site
address the relative roles of lattice and electronic dispropor- susceptibility ‰0 . g DF T can be read off from the on-site energy
tionation. difference and is nearly identical for all three materials, namely
D
2.89ev/Å for bulk and 2.972ev/Å for the bilayer and 2.962ev/Å
Methods. For our calculations, we use structures obtained from
for the monolayer. This means that a similar movement of
fully relaxed DFT+U calculations (43) and impose 0% strain the ions leads to a similar change of electrostatic potential,
relative to the theoretical bulk NNO lattice constant on the which is something we would expect as the local environment
heterostructures. We use Quantum Espresso, ultrasoft pseu- is similar. The static electronic response however is different,
dopotentials, either from the GBRV or generated using the with ‰0 = 1.16eV ≠1 for bulk, ‰0 = 1.25eV ≠1 for bilayer and
Vanderbilt ultrasoft pseudopotential generator as described in ‰0 = 1.39eV ≠1 for the monolayer, with a larger response for
previous work (43–47) and benchmark our results against ex- the materials with lower bandwidth.
perimental bulk structures. The disproportionated structures
have two inequivalent Ni sites, one with relatively long Ni-O
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank Sohrab Ismail-Beigi, Jean-
bonds (’LB’) and one with relatively short Ni-O bonds (’SB’). Marc Triscone, Hugo U.R. Strand, Manuel Zingl, Alexander Hampel
We define the structural order Q as: and Claude Ederer for helpful conversations and Nick Carriero and
Úq the Scientific Computing Core division of the Flatiron Institute
(i) (i) for invaluable technical assistance. The Flatiron Institute is a
(lLB ≠ lSB )2
Q= i
[5] division of the Simons Foundation. AG acknowledges the support
6 of the European Research Council (ERC-319286-QMAC). OEP
acknowledges funding from Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft (FFG)
where l(i) are the lengths of the Ni-O bonds. COMET program IC-MPPE (project No 859480)
For each structure we then perform a self consistent DFT
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6 Alexandru B. Georgescu.
7 E-mail: ageorgescu@flatironinstitute.org
41 DFT+U. For the DFT+U calculations, we performed calculations in the ferromagnetic phase, as our unit cells are not large
42 enough to reproduce the full experimentally determined magnetic structure in the bulk (with vector q=(1/4,1/4,1/4)) or bilayer
43 (q=(1/4,1/4,0) while the magnetic structure in the monolayer is not known but with ferromagnetism and a q=(1/4,1/4,0) vector
44 excluded. We use the FM state as a way to break symmetry leading to bond disproportionation and an alternating S=1, S=0
45 state, as more important in the physics of the final structure than the exact magnetic order. A Hund J is included implicitly
46 within spin-polarized DFT, however within the version of Quantum Espresso used for these calculations, only the effective
47 Dudarev Uef f = (U ≠ 2J) scheme is available, not allowing us to control U, J separately. For the two inequivalent Ni sites, as a
48 proxy for charge disproportionation, we use the difference in local magnetic moment. We find that the total magnetization
49 for the supercell is always equal to one Bohr magneton times the number of Nickel sites, as we would expect. However, the
50 projected magnetic moment on the Löwdin orbitals does not add up to this total magnetization, as the Löwdin orbitals are not
51 sufficient to describe the eg valence states. However, making the assumption that the Löwdin magnetic moment is directly
52 proportional to the magnetic moment per site, we can then write mN i ¥ mLowdin≠total ú 2µB/mtotal where mLowdin≠total is
53 the total magnetization per pair of Ni sites: this is the M plotted in Appendix C.
DFT+DMFT. The Slater-Kanamori Hamiltonian solved by DMFT using the tight binding model extracted from the Wannier
functions has the form on each lattice site:
ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿ
ĤU = U n̂mø n̂m¿ + (U ≠ 2J) n̂mø n̂mÕ ¿ + (U ≠ 3J) n̂m‡ n̂mÕ ‡ ≠ J c†mø cm¿ c†mÕ ¿ cmÕ ø
m m”=mÕ m<mÕ ,‡ m”=mÕ
ÿ
+J c† mø c†m¿ cmÕ ¿ cmÕ ø [1]
m”=mÕ
54 In the DFTTools interface between DFT and DMFT we use a k-mesh of 14x14x14 for the bulk material, and a k-mesh of
55 12x12x6 for the heterostructure to obtain quality local density of states. The DMFT calculations in this paper are performed
56 in a single-shot formalism, i.e. the new density is not updated into the DFT loop. Most DMFT calculations in this paper,
57 unless mentioned otherwise, are done at an inverse temperature — = 40eV ≠1 , equivalent to a temperature of 290K. Most
58 DMFT calculations are run for 15 steps using 107 QMC cycles. Calculations that require higher precision are ran for 35
59 steps, the first 30 using around 107 QMC cycles, and the final 5 using 3 ◊ 108 cycles. To compare with previous literature,
60 we’ve also performed density-density only calculations to benchmark our calculations. We find that using the Slater-Kanamori
61 Hamiltonian shifts the metal-insulator phase boundary to slightly higher values of J given a particular U (¥ 0.2eV ).