Three-dimensional electronic structures and the metal-insulator transition in Ruddlesden-Popper iridates

Yamasaki, Atsushi*; Fujiwara, Hidenori*; Tachibana, Shoichi*; Iwasaki, Daisuke*; Higashino, Yuji*; Yoshimi, Chiaki*; Nakagawa, Koya*; Nakatani, Yasuhiro*; Yamagami, Kohei*; Aratani, Hidekazu*; Kirilmaz, O.*; Sing, M.*; Claessen, R.*; Watanabe, Hiroshi*; Shirakawa, Tomonori*; Yunoki, Seiji*; Naito, Akihito*; Takase, Koichi*; Matsuno, Jobu*; Takagi, Hidenori*; Sekiyama, Akira*; Saito, Yuji  

In this study, we systematically investigate three-dimensional(3D) momentum-resolved electronic structures of Ruddlesden-Popper-type iridium oxides SrIrO using soft-X-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (SX-ARPES). Our results provide direct evidence of an insulator-to-metal transition that occurs upon increasing the dimensionality of the IrO-plane structure. This transition occurs when the spin-orbit-coupled = 1/2 band changes its behavior in the dispersion relation and moves across the Fermi energy. By scanning the photon energy over 350 eV, we reveal the 3D Fermi surface in SrIrO and -dependent oscillations of photoelectron intensity in SrIrO. To corroborate the physics deduced using low-energy ARPES studies, we propose to utilize SX-ARPES as a powerful complementary technique, as this method surveys more than one whole Brillouin zone and provides a panoramic view of electronic structures.