Electric current driven insulator–metal transition and large electroresistance in single crystal Sr2Ir1–xRuxO4

A series of single crystal Sr2Ir1–xRuxO4 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.55) have been synthesized, and their physical properties have been investigated. Ru-substitution at Ir-site can drastically reduce the resistivity, which is accompanied by serious suppression of the long range antiferromagnetic order. With the application of electric current, remarkable electroresistance exceeding 90% is obtained at x ∼ 0.2, which may contain significant contribution from the strong magnetic competitions. Interestingly, insulator–metal transition driven by electric current is observed (e.g., below 100 K), which can be ascribed to the lattice modulation. The findings indicate that the electric current can be an efficient route to tune the physical properties of the Jeff = 1/2 Mott insulator.