American Physical Society, Physical Review Letters, 21(111), 2013
DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.111.217801
Full text: Download
We report a novel insulator-insulator transition arising from the internal charge degrees of freedom in the two-dimensional quarter-filled organic salt β-(meso-DMBEDT-TTF)_{2}PF_{6}. The optical conductivity spectra above T_{c}=70 K display a prominent feature of the dimer Mott insulator, characterized by a substantial growth of a dimer peak near 0.6 eV with decreasing temperature. The dimer peak growth is rapidly quenched as soon as a peak of the charge order appears below T_{c}, indicating a competition between the two insulating phases. Our infrared imaging spectroscopy has further revealed a spatially competitive electronic phase far below T_{c}, suggesting a nature of quantum phase transition driven by material-parameter variations.