{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,17]],"date-time":"2026-08-17T22:29:18Z","timestamp":1787005758640,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":42,"publisher":"National Academy of Sciences","issue":"29","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,8]],"date-time":"2024-07-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1720396800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.pnas.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,16]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    Sr\n                    <jats:sub>2<\/jats:sub>\n                    IrO\n                    <jats:sub>4<\/jats:sub>\n                    has attracted considerable attention due to its structural and electronic similarities to La\n                    <jats:sub>2<\/jats:sub>\n                    CuO\n                    <jats:sub>4<\/jats:sub>\n                    , the parent compound of high-\n                    <jats:italic>T<\/jats:italic>\n                    <jats:sub>c<\/jats:sub>\n                    superconducting cuprates. It was proposed as a strong spin\u2013orbit-coupled\n                    <jats:italic>J<\/jats:italic>\n                    <jats:sub>eff<\/jats:sub>\n                    = 1\/2 Mott insulator, but the Mott nature of its insulating ground state has not been conclusively established. Here, we use ultrafast laser pulses to realize an insulator\u2013metal transition in Sr\n                    <jats:sub>2<\/jats:sub>\n                    IrO\n                    <jats:sub>4<\/jats:sub>\n                    and probe the resulting dynamics using time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. We observe a gap closure and the formation of weakly renormalized electronic bands in the gap region. Comparing these observations to the expected temperature and doping evolution of Mott gaps and Hubbard bands provides clear evidence that the insulating state does not originate from Mott correlations. We instead propose a correlated band insulator picture, where antiferromagnetic correlations play a key role in the gap opening. More broadly, our results demonstrate that energy\u2013momentum-resolved nonequilibrium dynamics can be used to clarify the nature of equilibrium states in correlated materials.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.2323013121","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,8]],"date-time":"2024-07-08T15:01:09Z","timestamp":1720450869000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.cm10313","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":12,"title":["Light-induced insulator\u2013metal transition in Sr\n                    <sub>2<\/sub>\n                    IrO\n                    <sub>4<\/sub>\n                    reveals the nature of the insulating ground state"],"prefix":"10.1073","volume":"121","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6295-2934","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Dongsung","family":"Choi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Changming","family":"Yue","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, University of Fribourg, Fribourg 1700, Switzerland"},{"name":"Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, People\u2019s Republic of China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Doron","family":"Azoury","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Zachary","family":"Porter","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Materials Department, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106"},{"name":"Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94025"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2920-9372","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jiyu","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, University of Fribourg, Fribourg 1700, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Francesco","family":"Petocchi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, University of Fribourg, Fribourg 1700, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8131-9974","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Edoardo","family":"Baldini","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139"},{"name":"Department of Physics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78705"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5804-3711","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Baiqing","family":"Lv","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139"},{"name":"School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, People\u2019s Republic of China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Masataka","family":"Mogi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139"},{"name":"Department of Applied Physics, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yifan","family":"Su","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Stephen D.","family":"Wilson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Materials Department, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Martin","family":"Eckstein","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, University of Erlangen-N\u00fcrnberg, Erlangen 91058, Germany"},{"name":"Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Hamburg, Hamburg 20355, Germany"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Philipp","family":"Werner","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, University of Fribourg, Fribourg 1700, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Nuh","family":"Gedik","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"341","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_4_1_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevLett.101.076402"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1063\/1.4921953"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_3_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1167106"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_4_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41567-019-0750-y"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_5_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevB.80.195110"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_6_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1088\/1361-648X\/ab2841"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_7_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1063\/1.4894465"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_8_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevB.82.115117"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_9_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevB.92.075125"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_10_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevMaterials.2.032001"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_11_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevB.86.035128"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_12_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/srep03073"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_13_2","unstructured":"R. Arita \u201cMott versus Slater-type metal\u2013insulator transition in Sr2IrO4 and Ba2IrO4\u201d in Proceedings of the International Conference on Strongly Correlated Electron Systems (SCES2013) (2014) pp. 1\u20136."},{"key":"e_1_3_4_14_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevLett.108.086403"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_15_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevB.88.035111"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_16_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevB.89.165115"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_17_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevB.102.201113"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_18_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevB.84.100402"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_19_2","unstructured":"Springer Materials Sr2IrO4 crystal structure. https:\/\/materials.springer.com\/isp\/crystallographic\/docs\/sd_1215409. 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