Metal-insulator transition in vanadium dioxide

The basic physical parameters which govern the metal-insulator transition in vanadium dioxide are determined through a review of the properties of this material. The major importance of the Hubbard intra-atomic correlation energy in determining the insulating phase, which was already evidenced by studies of the magnetic properties of V_1-xCr_xO₂ alloys, is further demonstrated from an analysis of their electrical properties. An analysis of the magnetic susceptibility of niobium-doped VO₂ yields a picture for the current carrier in the low-temperature phase in which it is accompanied by a spin cloud (owing to Hund's-rule coupling), and has therefore an enhanced mass (m≃60m₀). Semiconducting vanadium dioxide turns out to be a borderline case for a classical band-transport description; in the alloys at high doping levels, Anderson localization with hopping transport can take place. Whereas it is shown that the insulating phase cannot be described correctly without taking into account the Hubbard correlation energy, we find that the properties of the metallic phase are mainly determined by the band structure. Metallic VO₂ is, in our view, similar to transition metals like Pt or Pd: electrons in a comparatively wide band screening out the interaction between the electrons in a narrow overlapping band. The magnetic susceptibility is described as exchange enhanced. The large density of states at the Fermi level yields a substantial contribution of the entropy of the metallic electrons to the latent heat. The crystalline distortion removes the band degeneracy so that the correlation energy becomes comparable with the band width and a metal-insulator transition takes place.