Taming the Mott transition for a novel Mott transistor

The breakthrough with a brief tutorial of the Mott transition and its control is presented. When atoms are placed regularly in space, they form a lattice structure. The orbitals of those atoms then combine to form a new set of eigenfunctions, which extend throughout the full lattice and correspond to plane waves modulated by a periodic function. Mott insulator should be metals according to band-structure theory, but turn out to be insulators due to strong Coulomb repulsive interactions among its electrons. Mott insulators are often seen in transition metal oxides such as NiO, CuO, and V2O 3. Since most of the oxides of the sandwiches are transition metal oxides, Mott transition are controlled by small electric voltages. The search for the best candidate material for novel ReRAM devices is going on, which may create a revolution in future electronics.