Competition between instabilities of Peierls transition and Mott transition in W-doped VO<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:msub><mml:mrow/><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msub></mml:math>thin films

Abstract

The change in electronic structure of V${}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}$W${}_{x}$O${}_{2}$ thin films across a metal-insulator transition (MIT) is investigated in terms of hard x-ray photoemission spectroscopy and x-ray absorption spectroscopy. In the lower doping range (0 $\ensuremath{\le}$ $x$ $\ensuremath{\le}$ 0.08), the spectra exhibit the characteristic features for the dimerization of V ions in the monoclinic phase, indicating that Peierls-like instability predominately causes the MIT in this range. Conversely, in the higher doping range (0.1 $\ensuremath{\le}$ $x$), spectral weight transfer is observed from the coherent part at the Fermi level to the incoherent part, indicating that the ground state of V${}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}$W${}_{x}$O${}_{2}$ films in this range is a typical Mott insulator. The results suggest that the unusual phase diagram of the V${}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}$W${}_{x}$O${}_{2}$ thin films originates from the competition between the Peierls and Mott instabilities.