Functional oxide interfaces
- PDF / 828,927 Bytes
- 7 Pages / 585 x 783 pts Page_size
- 13 Downloads / 272 Views
Introduction Functional oxides form a vast and highly diverse family of compounds recognized for their stunningly rich physics and for their potential as next-generation nano-, micro-, and macroelectronic materials. They are potential candidates to partially replace silicon and introduce complexity in solidstate technologies, including digital information and communication technologies, microactuation/microsensing, and energy conversion. Silicon-based technologies have driven the electronics technological race during the last half-century. Silicon can be synthesized and manufactured at reduced cost, is abundant in nature, is well understood, simple, and versatile. It possesses remarkable functional properties both in its pure elemental form (e.g., p-n-dopable semiconductor for metallic channels and junctions) and in its oxide form (e.g., wide-bandgap barrier, piezoelectric). Silicon technology benefits today from decades of previous improvements and investment. However, in spite of the extraordinary success of this material, international technology roadmaps point to qualitatively new concepts and functionalities that the “simple” physics and chemistry of Si cannot support.1 Research on functional oxides was boosted in the last 25 years by a number of successive discoveries for this class of materials, including high temperature superconductivity,
colossal magnetoresistance, half-metallic behavior, record-high dielectric/ferroelectric/piezoelectric performances, multiferroic behavior,2,3 resistive switching behavior, giant thermoelectric and magnetocaloric effects, giant photoconductivity effects,4 giant ionic conduction, catalytic properties (including water splitting), field-induced Mott transitions, and topologically nontrivial behavior.5,6 Such discoveries have attracted a large number of scientists from different disciplines to this field. Mastering the complexity of this class of compounds offers virtually unlimited degrees of freedom in manipulating the states of matter and engineering functional properties for novel device concepts. The interfaces formed in oxide thin-film heterostructures represent a special field of research, which is the topic of this issue.
Oxide interfaces Interfaces have, by definition, reduced dimensionality and broken inversion symmetry along their normal direction. Neighboring materials stacked one over the other, within a so-called heterostructure forming the interface (or heterojunction if electronic transport is specifically studied), typically interact via their lattices (e.g., strain, chemical interdiffusion, phonons) and via their charge and spin degrees of freedom (e.g., space charge layer formation, exchange bias effects). Interface-based device concepts have revolutionized the lives of humankind.
Fabio Miletto Granozio, CNR-SPIN, Institute for Superconductors and Innovative Materials and Devices of the National Research Council, Complesso Universitario di Monte Sant’Angelo, Napoli, Italy; [email protected] Gertjan Koster, MESA+ Institute for Technology, University of T
Data Loading...
