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Journal Article
Imaging the Nanoscale Phase Separation in Vanadium Dioxide Thin Films at Terahertz Frequencies
- Authors
- H.T. Stinson, A. Sternbach, O. Najera, R. Jing, A.S. Mcleod, T.V. Slusar, A. Mueller, L. Anderegg, H.T. Kim, M. Rozenberg, D.N. Basov
- Issue Date
- 2018-09
- Citation
- Nature Communications, v.9, pp.1-9
- ISSN
- 2041-1723
- Publisher
- Nature Research
- Language
- English
- Type
- Journal Article
- Abstract
- Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is a material that undergoes an insulator?뱈etal transition upon heating above 340 K. It remains debated as to whether this electronic transition is driven by a corresponding structural transition or by strong electron?밻lectron correlations. Here, we use apertureless scattering near-field optical microscopy to compare nanoscale images of the transition in VO2 thin films acquired at both mid-infrared and terahertz frequencies, using a home-built terahertz near-field microscope. We observe a much more gradual transition when THz frequencies are utilized as a probe, in contrast to the assumptions of a classical first-order phase transition. We discuss these results in light of dynamical mean-field theory calculations of the dimer Hubbard model recently applied to VO2, which account for a continuous temperature dependence of the optical response of the VO2 in the insulating state.
- KSP Keywords
- Continuous temperature, Dynamical mean-field theory, Electronic transition, Field microscope, Hubbard model, Insulating state, Mid-infrared(MIR), THz frequency, Terahertz frequency, Vanadium dioxide thin film, first-order phase transition
This work is distributed under the term of Creative Commons License (CCL)
(CC BY)
(CC BY)
