Strongly correlated multilayered nanostructures near the Mott transition

TL;DR

This paper investigates multilayered nanostructures near the Mott transition using dynamical mean field theory, revealing the crossover from tunneling to thermally activated transport and providing insights into their electronic properties.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized Thouless energy to describe transport crossover in correlated multilayered nanostructures near the Mott transition.

Findings

Identified the density of states across the nanostructure

Characterized the charge transport mechanisms

Proposed a generalized energy scale for transport crossover

Abstract

We examine devices constructed out of multilayered sandwiches of semi-infinite metal--barrier--semi-infinite metal, with the barrier tuned to lie near the quantum critical point of the Mott metal-insulator transition. By employing dynamical mean field theory, we are able to solve the many-body problem exactly (within the local approximation) and determine the density of states through the nanostructure and the charge transport perpendicular to the planes. We introduce a generalization of the Thouless energy that describes the crossover from tunneling to incoherent thermally activated transport.