Observation of 2D Fermionic Mott Insulators

posted in: fermi2, news & events | 0

Lawrence W. Cheuk, Matthew A. Nichols, Katherine R. Lawrence, Melih Okan, Hao Zhang, Martin W. Zwierlein

Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 235301 (2016)arXiv:1604.00096 (2016)

We report on the site-resolved observation of characteristic states of the two-dimensional repulsive Fermi-Hubbard model, using ultracold 40K atoms in an optical lattice. By varying the tunneling, interaction strength, and external confinement, we realize metallic, Mott-insulating, and band-insulating states. We directly measure the local moment, which quantifies the degree of on-site magnetization, as a function of temperature and chemical potential. Entropies per particle as low as 0.99(6)kB indicate that nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic correlations should be detectable using spin-sensitive imaging.

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