Confined conduction channels near a metal-insulator transition
5 affiliations
- 1Department of Physics and Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
- 2Department of Physics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
- 3Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
- 4Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
- 5CIFAR Quantum Materials, CIFAR, Toronto, Canada
Abstract
Materials that transition between metal and insulator, the two main states that distinguish all solids, are fascinating because they underlie many mysteries at the frontier of solid-state physics. In 1T-TaS 2 , the metal-insulator transition is linked to a metastable hidden state arising within a chiral charge density wave (CDW) whose basic nature remains an open question. In this work, we show that pulses of current through this material create current-carrying filamentary channels that distinguish the ‘metallic’ hidden state and the ‘insulating’ CDW states. These channels have remained undetected in previous measurements and yet are directly linked to the properties of the hidden state. We leverage the metastability of these conduction channels to demonstrate electrical control of their creation, erasure and location. Our findings show that physical elements such as boundaries and interfaces play a key role in the properties of the hidden state characterizing the metal-insulator transition. We propose new possibilities for in-situ electrical design of reconfigurable conductive networks, highlighting the broader device potential of these metastable states.
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BibTeX
@article{devidas2026confined,
title = {{Confined conduction channels near a metal-insulator transition}},
author = {Taget Raghavendran Devidas and Dror Yahav and Jonathan Reichanadter and Matan Sterenberg and Shannon C. Haley and Joel E. Moore and Jeffrey B. Neaton and James G. Analytis and Beena Kalisky and Eran Maniv},
journal = {npj Quantum Materials},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1038/s41535-026-00928-x},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41535-026-00928-x},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Confined conduction channels near a metal-insulator transition
AU - Taget Raghavendran Devidas
AU - Dror Yahav
AU - Jonathan Reichanadter
AU - Matan Sterenberg
AU - Shannon C. Haley
AU - Joel E. Moore
AU - Jeffrey B. Neaton
AU - James G. Analytis
AU - Beena Kalisky
AU - Eran Maniv
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
JO - npj Quantum Materials
DO - 10.1038/s41535-026-00928-x
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41535-026-00928-x
AB - Materials that transition between metal and insulator, the two main states that distinguish all solids, are fascinating because they underlie many mysteries at the frontier of solid-state physics. In 1T-TaS 2 , the metal-insulator transition is linked to a metastable hidden state arising within a chiral charge density wave (CDW) whose basic nature remains an open question. In this work, we show that pulses of current through this material create current-carrying filamentary channels that distinguish the ‘metallic’ hidden state and the ‘insulating’ CDW states. These channels have remained undetected in previous measurements and yet are directly linked to the properties of the hidden state. We leverage the metastability of these conduction channels to demonstrate electrical control of their creation, erasure and location. Our findings show that physical elements such as boundaries and interfaces play a key role in the properties of the hidden state characterizing the metal-insulator transition. We propose new possibilities for in-situ electrical design of reconfigurable conductive networks, highlighting the broader device potential of these metastable states.
SN - 2397-4648
ER -