Electric-field-induced shift of the Mott metal-insulator transition in thin films

The ground-state properties of a paramagnetic Mott insulator at half-filling are investigated in the presence of an external electric field using the inhomogeneous Gutzwiller approximation for a single-band Hubbard model in a slab geometry. We find that the metal-insulator transition is shifted toward higher Hubbard repulsions by applying an electric field perpendicular to the slab. The main reason is the accumulation of charges near the surface. The spatial distribution of site-dependent quasiparticle weight shows that it is maximal in a few layers beneath the surface, while the central sites where the field is screened have a very low quasiparticle weight. Our results show that above a critical-field value, states near the surface will be metallic, while the bulk quasiparticle weight is extremely suppressed but never vanishing, even for large Hubbard repulsions above the bulk zero-field critical value. Below the critical-field value, our results hint toward an insulating state in which the electric field is totally screened and the slab is again at half-filling.