The Mott transition in V 2O 3 and NiSe xS 2− x: insights from dynamical mean field theory

Abstract

We discuss some aspects of the pressure (or interaction) driven Mott transition, in three-dimensional transition metal oxides by means of dynamical mean field theory. We isolate the universal properties of the transition from the aspects which depend more on the detailed chemistry of the compounds. In this light we can understand the main differences and the remarkable similarities between the NiSe x S 2− x and the V 2O 3 system. Both theory and experiment converge on the transfer of spectral weight from low energies to high energies as the universal mechanism underlying the Mott transition, and we comment on the possible relevance of these ideas to other metal to nonmetal transitions.