Surface Effects on the Mott-Hubbard Transition in Archetypal V2O3

We present an experimental and theoretical study exploring surface effects on the evolution of the metal-insulator transition in the model Mott-Hubbard compound Cr-doped V2O3. We find a microscopic domain formation that is clearly affected by the surface crystallographic orientation. Using scanning photoelectron microscopy and x-ray diffraction, we find that surface defects act as nucleation centers for the formation of domains at the temperature-induced isostructural transition and favor the formation of microscopic metallic regions. A density-functional theory plus dynamical mean-field theory study of different surface terminations shows that the surface reconstruction with excess vanadyl cations leads to doped, and hence more metallic, surface states, which explains our experimental observations.