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Conductivity control via minimally invasive anti-Frenkel defects in a functional oxide.
Journal article

Conductivity control via minimally invasive anti-Frenkel defects in a functional oxide.

  • Evans DM Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway. donald.evans@ntnu.no.
  • Holstad TS Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
  • Mosberg AB Department of Physics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
  • Småbråten DR Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
  • Vullum PE SINTEF Industry, Trondheim, Norway.
  • Dadlani AL Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
  • Shapovalov K Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), Campus UAB, Bellaterra, Spain.
  • Yan Z Department of Physics, ETH Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland.
  • Bourret E Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
  • Gao D Department of Physics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
  • Akola J Department of Physics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
  • Torgersen J Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), Campus UAB, Bellaterra, Spain.
  • van Helvoort ATJ Department of Physics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
  • Selbach SM Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
  • Meier D Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway. dennis.meier@ntnu.no.
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  • 2020-08-19
Published in:
  • Nature materials. - 2020
Mechanical Engineering
General Materials Science
Mechanics of Materials
General Chemistry
Condensed Matter Physics
English Utilizing quantum effects in complex oxides, such as magnetism, multiferroicity and superconductivity, requires atomic-level control of the material's structure and composition. In contrast, the continuous conductivity changes that enable artificial oxide-based synapses and multiconfigurational devices are driven by redox reactions and domain reconfigurations, which entail long-range ionic migration and changes in stoichiometry or structure. Although both concepts hold great technological potential, combined applications seem difficult due to the mutually exclusive requirements. Here we demonstrate a route to overcome this limitation by controlling the conductivity in the functional oxide hexagonal Er(Mn,Ti)O3 by using conductive atomic force microscopy to generate electric-field induced anti-Frenkel defects, that is, charge-neutral interstitial-vacancy pairs. These defects are generated with nanoscale spatial precision to locally enhance the electronic hopping conductivity by orders of magnitude without disturbing the ferroelectric order. We explain the non-volatile effects using density functional theory and discuss its universality, suggesting an alternative dimension to functional oxides and the development of multifunctional devices for next-generation nanotechnology.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
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Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/185256
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