Electric field driven insulator-to-metal phase transitions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that strong electric fields can induce insulator-to-metal phase transitions by promoting nucleation of metallic regions, potentially enabling new material synthesis methods such as metallic hydrogen at standard pressure.

Contribution

It introduces a theory explaining how electric fields facilitate nucleation of metallic phases in insulators through electrostatic energy gain and barrier suppression.

Findings

Electric fields induce nucleation of metallic embryos in insulators.

Nucleation barriers are exponentially suppressed by the electric field.

Potential for field-driven synthesis of novel metallic materials.

Abstract

We show that strong enough electric fields can trigger nucleation of needle-shaped metallic embryos in insulators, even when the metal phase is energetically unfavorable without the field. This general phenomenon is due to the gigantic induced dipole moments acquired by the embryos which cause sufficient electrostatic energy gain. Nucleation kinetics are exponentially accelerated by the field-induced suppression of nucleation barriers. Our theory opens the venue of field driven material synthesis. In particular, we briefly discuss synthesis of metallic hydrogen at standard pressure.