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Register a new userPersistent photoconductivity in 2-dimensional electron gases at different oxide interfaces
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Emiliano Di Gennaro Dr.
Publication date
2013
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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We report on the transport characterization in dark and under light irradiation of three different interfaces: LaAlO3/SrTiO3, LaGaO3/SrTiO3, and the novel NdGaO3/SrTiO3 heterostructure. All of them share a perovskite structure, an insulating nature of the single building blocks, a polar/non- polar character and a critical thickness of four unit cells for the onset of conductivity. The interface structure and charge confinement in NdGaO3/SrTiO3 are probed by atomic-scale- resolved electron energy loss spectroscopy showing that, similarly to LaAlO3/SrTiO3, extra electronic charge confined in a sheet of about 1.5 nm in thickness is present at the NdGaO3/SrTiO3 interface. Electric transport measurements performed in dark and under radiation show remarkable similarities and provide evidence that the persistent perturbation induced by light is an intrinsic peculiar property of the three investigated oxide-based polar/non-polar interfaces. Our work sets a framework for understanding the previous contrasting results found in literature about photoconductivity in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 and highlights the connection between the origin of persistent photoconductivity and the origin of conductivity itself. An improved understanding of the photo- induced metastable electron-hole pairs might allow to shed a direct light on the complex physics of this system and on the recently proposed perspectives of oxide interfaces for solar energy conversion.
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The discovery of two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) at the interface between two insulating complex oxides, such as LaAlO3 (LAO) or gamma-Al2O3 (GAO) epitaxially grown on SrTiO3 (STO) 1,2, provides an opportunity for developing all-oxide electronic devices3,4. These 2DEGs at complex oxide interfaces involve many-body interactions and give rise to a rich set of phenomena5, for example, superconductivity6, magnetism7,8, tunable metal-insulator transitions9, and phase separation10. However, large enhancement of the interfacial electron mobility remains a major and long-standing challenge for fundamental as well as applied research of complex oxides11-15. Here, we inserted a single unit cell insulating layer of polar La1-xSrxMnO3 (x=0, 1/8, and 1/3) at the interface between disordered LaAlO3 and crystalline SrTiO3 created at room temperature. We find that the electron mobility of the interfacial 2DEG is enhanced by more than two orders of magnitude. Our in-situ and resonant x-ray spectroscopic in addition to transmission electron microscopy results indicate that the manganite layer undergoes unambiguous electronic reconstruction and leads to modulation doping of such atomically engineered complex oxide heterointerfaces. At low temperatures, the modulation-doped 2DEG exhibits clear Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations and the initial manifestation of the quantum Hall effect, demonstrating an unprecedented high-mobility and low electron density oxide 2DEG system. These findings open new avenues for oxide electronics.
High mobility two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) underpin todays silicon based devices and are of fundamental importance for the emerging field of oxide electronics. Such 2DEGs are usually created by engineering band offsets and charge transfer at heterointerfaces. However, in 2011 it was shown that highly itinerant 2DEGs can also be induced at bare surfaces of different transition metal oxides where they are far more accessible to high resolution angle resolved photoemission (ARPES) experiments. Here we review work from this nascent field which has led to a systematic understanding of the subband structure arising from quantum confinement of highly anisotropic transition metal d-states along different crystallographic directions. We further discuss the role of different surface preparations and the origin of surface 2DEGs, the understanding of which has permitted control over 2DEG carrier densities. Finally, we discuss signatures of strong many-body interactions and how spectroscopic data from surface 2DEGs may be related to the transport properties of interface 2DEGs in the same host materials.
Interfaces between complex oxides constitute a unique playground for 2D electron systems (2DES), where superconductivity and magnetism can arise from combinations of bulk insulators. The 2DES at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface is one of the most studied in this regard, and its origin is determined by both the presence of a polar field in LaAlO3 and the insurgence of point defects, such as oxygen vacancies and intermixed cations. These defects usually reside in the conduction channel and are responsible for a decreased electronic mobility. In this work we use an amorphous WO3 overlayer to control the defect formation and obtain an increased electron mobility and effective mass in WO3/LaAlO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures. The studied system shows a sharp insulator-to-metal transition as a function of both LaAlO3 and WO3 layer thickness. Low-temperature magnetotransport reveals a strong magnetoresistance reaching 900% at 10 T and 1.5 K, the presence of multiple conduction channels with carrier mobility up to 80 000 cm2/Vs and an unusually high effective mass of 5.6 me. The amorphous character of the WO3 overlayer makes this a versatile approach for defect control at oxide interfaces, which could be applied to other heterestrostures disregarding the constraints imposed by crystal symmetry.
Atomically sharp oxide heterostructures exhibit a range of novel physical phenomena that do not occur in the parent bulk compounds. The most prominent example is the appearance of highly conducting and superconducting states at the interface between the band insulators LaAlO3 and SrTiO3. Here we report a new emergent phenomenon at the LaMnO3/SrTiO3 interface in which an antiferromagnetic insulator abruptly transforms into a magnetic state that exhibits unexpected nanoscale superparamagnetic dynamics. Upon increasing the thickness of LaMnO3 above five unit cells, our scanning nanoSQUID-on-tip microscopy shows spontaneous formation of isolated magnetic islands of 10 to 50 nm diameter, which display random moment reversals by thermal activation or in response to an in-plane magnetic field. Our charge reconstruction model of the polar LaMnO3/SrTiO3 heterostructure describes the sharp emergence of thermodynamic phase separation leading to nucleation of metallic ferromagnetic islands in an insulating antiferromagnetic matrix. The model further suggests that the nearby superparamagnetic-ferromagnetic transition can be gate tuned, holding potential for applications in magnetic storage and spintronics.
The discovery of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) at well-defined interfaces between insulating complex oxides provides the opportunity for a new generation of all-oxide electronics. Particularly, the 2DEG at the interface between two perovskite insulators represented by the formula of ABO3, such as LaAlO3 and SrTiO3, has attracted significant attention. In recent years, progresses have been made to decipher the puzzle of the origin of interface conduction, to design new types of oxide interfaces, and to improve the interfacial carrier mobility significantly. These achievements open the door to explore fundamental as well as applied physics of complex oxides. Here, we review our recent experimental work on metallic and insulating interfaces controlled by interfacial redox reactions in SrTiO3-based heterostructures. Due to the presence of oxygen-vacancies at the SrTiO3 surface, metallic conduction can be created at room temperature in perovskite-type interfaces when the overlayer oxide ABO3 involves Al, Ti, Zr, or Hf elements at the B-sites. Furthermore, relying on interface-stabilized oxygen vacancies, we have created a new type of 2DEG at the heterointerface between SrTiO3 and a spinel {gamma}-Al2O3 epitaxial film with compatible oxygen ions sublattices. The spinel/perovskite oxide 2DEG exhibits an electron mobility exceeding 100,000 cm2V-1s-1, more than one order of magnitude higher than those of hitherto investigated perovskite-type interfaces. Our findings pave the way for design of high-mobility all-oxide electronic devices and open a route towards studies of mesoscopic physics with complex oxides.
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