Disorder induced power-law gaps in an insulator–metal Mott transition

Significance Correlated electron systems often show unexpected behavior that defies theoretical explanations. One such mystery is the universal presence of V-shaped gaps with surprisingly linear energy dependence, whose origins are as-yet unknown. Conventional wisdom implicates static order like charge density waves or fluctuations of a nearby order parameter like superconductivity or antiferromagnetism. However, adding dopants to correlated systems inevitably leads to the opposite of order—i.e., electronic disorder—which begs the question: Could disorder create well-defined signatures in electronic properties? By carefully choosing a material with no additional order, we show that order is not the only path to gaps and that disorder may play a surprising role in generating universal signatures in the density of states of disordered correlated systems.

Disorder induced power-law gaps in an insulator–metal Mott transition Journal Articles