Universality of charge doping driven metal-insulator transition in Sr2RhO4 and role of spin-orbit coupling

Abstract

We performed angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) experiments on an electron-doped Sr2RhO4 system Sr2-xCexRhO4 in order to investigate the electron doping-induced metal-insulator transition (MIT). We establish the universality of MIT in electron-doped Sr2RhO4 by comparing results from Sr2-xLaxRhO4 and Sr2-xCexRhO4. Via a systematic analysis of doping-dependent transport and ARPES data, we show that the correlation driven MIT with a noninteger electron number in electron-doped Sr2RhO4 is universal and thus independent of the dopant. Within the universality, the ARPES analysis shows that the band topology determined by the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) is likely a control parameter of the insulating gap size and critical electron number of the MIT. We present a phase diagram of the insulating phase as a function of the effective SOC and electron number. © 2022 American Physical Society.