Inhomogeneous metallic phase upon disordering a two dimensional Mott insulator

Abstract

We find that isoelectronic disorder destroys the spectral gap in a Mott-Hubbard insulator in 2D leading, most unexpectedly, to a new metallic phase. This phase is spatially inhomogeneous with metallic behavior coexisting with antiferromagnetic long range order. Even though the Mott gap in the pure system is much larger than antiferromagnetic exchange, the spectral gap is destroyed locally in regions where the disorder potential is high enough to overcome the inter-electron repulsion thereby generating puddles where charge fluctuations are enhanced. With increasing disorder, these puddles expand and concomitantly the states at the Fermi energy get extended leading to a metallic phase. We discuss the implications of our results for experiments.