Turning a nickelate Fermi surface into a cuprate-like one through heterostructuring

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that heterostructuring LaNiO3/LaAlO3 can induce a cuprate-like Fermi surface in nickelates, revealing potential for orbital engineering and similarities to high-temperature cuprate superconductors.

Contribution

The paper shows that electronic correlations in nickelate heterostructures can produce a cuprate-like Fermi surface, highlighting the potential for orbital engineering in these materials.

Findings

Nickelate heterostructures exhibit a cuprate-like Fermi surface.

Strong antiferromagnetic correlations are present.

Electronic and spin excitations resemble those in high-temperature cuprates.

Abstract

Using the local density approximation and its combination with dynamical mean-field theory, we show that electronic correlations induce a single-sheet, cuprate-like Fermi surface for hole-doped 1/1 LaNiO3 /LaAlO3 heterostructures, even though both eg orbitals contribute to it. The Ni 3d 3z^2-1 orbital plays the role of the axial Cu 4s-like orbital in the cuprates. These two results indicate that "orbital engineering" by means of heterostructuring should be possible. As we also find strong antiferromagnetic correlations, the low-energy electronic and spin excitations in nickelate heterostructures resemble those of high-temperature cuprate superconductors.