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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Insulator to metal transition by bandwidth reduction

Guoren Zhang1 and Eva Pavarini2

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Phys. Rev. B 112, L201101 – Published 4 November, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/m3r6-ylxr

Abstract

In a classic Mott system, the transition from the insulating to the metallic state occurs when the lattice spacing is reduced such that the increase in bandwidth W overcomes the local Coulomb repulsion U. In this picture, both W and the ratio W/U become larger with decreasing the distance between correlated sites. Here we show that, in transition-metal compounds, there is another path to metallization. It is associated with an expansion (instead of a compression) of the lattice and thus with a decrease in W. In this scenario W/U grows with increasing distance—the opposite of the classical Mott case. Such a surprising inversion can be obtained by decoupling the main factors controlling W and screening. This mechanism explains the electronic behavior of the t2g2 triangular lattice series LiVX2 (X=O, S, and Se) with increasing anionic size.

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Phys. Rev. B 112, L201101– Published 4 November, 2025
  • Received 27 March 2025
  • Accepted 17 October 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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