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

Abstract

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.
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Category

Academic article

Language

English

Author(s)

  • Donald Evans
  • Theodor Secanell Holstad
  • Aleksander Buseth Mosberg
  • Didrik René Småbråten
  • Per Erik Vullum
  • Anup Dadlani
  • Konstantin Shapovalov
  • Zewu Yan
  • Edith Bourret
  • David Zhe Gao
  • Jaakko Akola
  • Jan Torgersen
  • Antonius Van Helvoort
  • Sverre Magnus Selbach
  • Dennis Meier

Affiliation

  • SINTEF Industry / Materials and Nanotechnology
  • Tampere University
  • Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona
  • United Kingdom
  • Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich
  • Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Year

2020

Published in

Nature Materials

ISSN

1476-1122

Volume

19

Page(s)

1195 - 1200

View this publication at Norwegian Research Information Repository