Controlled electronic and magnetic landscape in self-assembled complex oxide heterostructures

Abstract

Complex oxide heterointerfaces contain a rich playground of novel physicalproperties and functionalities, which give rise to emerging technologies.Among designing and controlling the functional properties of complex oxidefilm heterostructures, vertically aligned nanostructure (VAN) films using aself-assembling bottom-up deposition method presents great promise interms of structural flexibility and property tunability. Here, the bottom-upself-assembly is extended to a new approach using a mixture containing a2Dlayer-by-layer film growth, followed by a 3D VAN film growth. In this work,the two-phase nanocomposite thin films are based on LaAlO3:LaBO3,grownon a lattice-mismatched SrTiO3001(001) single crystal. The 2D-to-3D transientstructural assembly is primarily controlled by the composition ratio, leading tothe coexistence of multiple interfacial properties, 2D electron gas, andmagnetic anisotropy. This approach provides multidimensional filmheterostructures which enrich the emergent phenomena for multifunctionalapplications.