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Layer-controlled orbital-selective Mott transition in monolayer nickelate

Byungmin Sohn1,2,*,†, Minjae Kim3,4,*, Sangjae Lee1,*, Wenzheng Wei1, Juan Jiang1, Fengmiao Li5, Sergey Gorovikov6, Marta Zonno6, Tor Pedersen6 et al.

Sergey Zhdanovich6, Ying Liu7, Huikai Cheng7, Ke Zou5, Yu He1, Sohrab Ismail-Beigi1, Frederick J. Walker1, and Charles H. Ahn1,8

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: bsohn@skku.edu
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 043132 – Published 4 November, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/n92p-xrhl

Abstract

Dimensionality and electronic correlations are crucial elements of many quantum material properties. An example is the change of the electronic structure accompanied by the loss of quasiparticles when a metal is reduced from three dimensions to a lower dimension, where the Coulomb interaction between carriers becomes poorly screened. Here, using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we report an orbital-selective decoherence of spectral density in the perovskite nickelate LaNiO3 toward the monolayer limit. The spectral weight of the dz2 band vanishes much faster than that of the dx2−y2 band as the thickness of the LaNiO3 layer is decreased to a single unit cell, indicating a stronger correlation effect for the former upon dimensional confinement. Dynamical mean-field theory calculations show an orbital-selective Mott transition largely due to the localization of dz2 electrons along the c axis in the monolayer limit. This orbital-selective correlation effect underpins many macroscopic properties of nickelates, such as metal-to-insulator transition and superconductivity, where most theories are built upon a dx2−y2–dz2 two-band model.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 043132– Published 4 November, 2025
  • Received 5 January 2025
  • Accepted 23 September 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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