Collapse of the simple localized 3d^{1} orbital picture in Mott insulator

oleh: Shunsuke Kitou, Taishun Manjo, Naoyuki Katayama, Tatsuya Shishidou, Taka-hisa Arima, Yasujiro Taguchi, Yoshinori Tokura, Toshikazu Nakamura, Toshihiko Yokoyama, Kunihisa Sugimoto, Hiroshi Sawa

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: American Physical Society 2020-09-01

Deskripsi

The orbital degree of freedom of electrons greatly influences the physical properties of materials such as magnetic order and unconventional superconductivity. An orbital is a minimal unit of “shape,” and the orbital state can be unraveled by observing the spatial anisotropic distribution of electrons. However, it is difficult to experimentally extract the orbital information in a crystal because of various technical problems. Here, the Ti-3d orbital state in perovskite-type oxides RTiO_{3} (R=Y, Sm, and La) is directly determined by a core differential Fourier synthesis (CDFS) method using synchrotron x-ray diffraction. The valence electron-density distribution, including information on the anisotropy and the hybridization between atomic orbitals, can be extracted from the CDFS analysis. Our study not only demonstrates the relationship between the magnetic- and orbital-ordered states called the Kugel-Khomskii model, but also provides a nontrivial picture of the orbital state reconstructed by the orbital hybridization.