Yunzhong Chen

Metallic and Insulating Interfaces of Amorphous SrTiO3-Based Oxide Heterostructures

The conductance confined at the interface of complex oxide heterostructures provides new opportunities to explore nanoelectronic as well as nanoionic devices. Herein we show that metallic interfaces can be realized in SrTiO(3)-based heterostructures with various insulating overlayers of amorphous LaAlO(3), SrTiO(3), and yttria-stabilized zirconia films. On the other hand, samples of amorphous La(7/8)Sr(1/8)MnO(3) films on SrTiO(3) substrates remain insulating. The interfacial conductivity results from the formation of oxygen vacancies near the interface, suggesting that the redox reactions on the surface of SrTiO(3) substrates play an important role.

A high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas at the spinel/perovskite interface of γ-Al2O3/SrTiO3.

The discovery of two-dimensional electron gases at the heterointerface between two insulating perovskite-type oxides, such as LaAlO(3) and SrTiO(3), provides opportunities for a new generation of all-oxide electronic devices. Key challenges remain for achieving interfacial electron mobilities much beyond the current value of approximately 1,000 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) (at low temperatures). Here we create a new type of two-dimensional electron gas at the heterointerface between SrTiO(3) and a spinel γ-Al(2)O(3) epitaxial film with compatible oxygen ions sublattices. Electron mobilities more than one order of magnitude higher than those of hitherto-investigated perovskite-type interfaces are obtained. The spinel/perovskite two-dimensional electron gas, where the two-dimensional conduction character is revealed by quantum magnetoresistance oscillations, is found to result from interface-stabilized oxygen vacancies confined within a layer of 0.9 nm in proximity to the interface. Our findings pave the way for studies of mesoscopic physics with complex oxides and design of high-mobility all-oxide electronic devices.

Extreme mobility enhancement of two-dimensional electron gases at oxide interfaces by charge-transfer-induced modulation doping.

Two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) formed at the interface of insulating complex oxides promise the development of all-oxide electronic devices. These 2DEGs involve many-body interactions that give rise to a variety of physical phenomena such as superconductivity, magnetism, tunable metal-insulator transitions and phase separation. Increasing the mobility of the 2DEG, however, remains a major challenge. Here, we show that the electron mobility is enhanced by more than two orders of magnitude by inserting a single-unit-cell insulating layer of polar La(1-x)Sr(x)MnO3 (x = 0, 1/8, and 1/3) at the interface between disordered LaAlO3 and crystalline SrTiO3 produced at room temperature. Resonant X-ray spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy show that the manganite layer undergoes unambiguous electronic reconstruction, leading to modulation doping of such atomically engineered complex oxide heterointerfaces. At low temperatures, the modulation-doped 2DEG exhibits Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations and fingerprints of the quantum Hall effect, demonstrating unprecedented high mobility and low electron density.

Creation of High Mobility Two-Dimensional Electron Gases via Strain Induced Polarization at an Otherwise Nonpolar Complex Oxide Interface

The discovery of two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) in SrTiO3-based heterostructures provides new opportunities for nanoelectronics. Herein, we create a new type of oxide 2DEG by the epitaxial-strain-induced polarization at an otherwise nonpolar perovskite-type interface of CaZrO3/SrTiO3. Remarkably, this heterointerface is atomically sharp and exhibits a high electron mobility exceeding 60,000 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) at low temperatures. The 2DEG carrier density exhibits a critical dependence on the film thickness, in good agreement with the polarization induced 2DEG scheme.

Room Temperature Formation of High‐Mobility Two‐Dimensional Electron Gases at Crystalline Complex Oxide Interfaces

Well-controlled sub-unit-cell layer-bylayer epitaxial growth of spinel alumina is achieved at room temperature on a TiO2 -terminated SrTiO3 single-crystalline substrate. By tailoring the interface redox reaction, 2D electron gases with mobilities exceeding 3000 cm 2 V(-1) s(-1) are achieved at this novel oxide interface.

Resistance switching at the interface of LaAlO3/SrTiO3

At the interface of LaAlO3/SrTiO3 with film thickness of 3 unit cells or greater, a reproducible electric-field-induced bipolar resistance switching of the interfacial conduction is observed on nanometer scale by a biased conducting atomic force microscopy under vacuum environment. The switching behavior is suggested to be an intrinsic feature of the SrTiO3 single crystal substrates, which mainly originates from the modulation of oxygen ion transfer in SrTiO3 surface by external electric field in the vicinity of interface, whereas the LaAlO3 film acts as a barrier layer.At the interface of LaAlO3/SrTiO3 with film thickness of 3 unit cells or greater, a reproducible electric-field-induced bipolar resistance switching of the interfacial conduction is observed on nanometer scale by a biased conducting atomic force microscopy under vacuum environment. The switching behavior is suggested to be an intrinsic feature of the SrTiO3 single crystal substrates, which mainly originates from the modulation of oxygen ion transfer in SrTiO3 surface by external electric field in the vicinity of interface, whereas the LaAlO3 film acts as a barrier layer.

Quantization of Hall Resistance at the Metallic Interface between an Oxide Insulator and SrTiO_{3}.

The two-dimensional metal forming at the interface between an oxide insulator and SrTiO_{3} provides new opportunities for oxide electronics. However, the quantum Hall effect, one of the most fascinating effects of electrons confined in two dimensions, remains underexplored at these complex oxide heterointerfaces. Here, we report the experimental observation of quantized Hall resistance in a SrTiO_{3} heterointerface based on the modulation-doped amorphous-LaAlO_{3}/SrTiO_{3} heterostructure, which exhibits both high electron mobility exceeding 10,000  cm^{2}/V s and low carrier density on the order of ∼10^{12}  cm^{-2}. Along with unambiguous Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations, the spacing of the quantized Hall resistance suggests that the interface is comprised of a single quantum well with ten parallel conducting two-dimensional sub-bands. This provides new insight into the electronic structure of conducting oxide interfaces and represents an important step towards designing and understanding advanced oxide devices.

Crossover of angular dependent magnetoresistance with the metal-insulator transition in colossal magnetoresistive manganite films

The temperature and magnetic field dependence of angular dependent magnetoresistance (AMR) along two orthogonal directions ([100] and [01¯1]) was investigated in a charge-orbital-ordered Sm0.5Ca0.5MnO3 (SCMO) film grown on (011)-oriented SrTiO3 substrates. A dramatic decrease of AMR magnitude in both directions was observed with the appearance of magnetic-field-induced metal-insulator transition, which further led to a sign crossover in the AMR effect. The AMR crossover may give a direct evidence of the drastic modification of electronic structure or possible orbital reconstruction with the magnetic-destruction of charge/orbital ordering in SCMO films.

Controlling interfacial states in amorphous/crystalline LaAlO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures by electric fields

The tunable metal-insulator transition in crystalline LaAlO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures constitutes a central element in the range of remarkable interface properties that has made this oxide system subject to extensive research. Recently, metallic interfaces have also been realized when depositing amorphous LaAlO3 films on SrTiO3. Here, we present a non-volatile and reversible tuning of the interface conductivity by more than 3 orders of magnitude at room temperature by applying an electric field to such amorphous/crystalline heterostructures with amorphous LaAlO3 film thicknesses of ∼2 nm. We show that the tunability is strongly temperature dependent, and demonstrate a simple protocol for enhancing the tunability.

Evidence of weak superconductivity at the room-temperature grown LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface

The two-dimensional electron gas at the crystalline LaAlO