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Research Zernike (ZIAM) Solid State Materials for Electronics

Nanostructures of Functional Oxides

Our aim is to gain access to the materials nanoscale by manipulating the growth of thin film oxides at atomic level. By growing structures atomic-layer by atomic-layer one can create novel materials with compositions and symmetries deliberately tailored for specific applications. The focus is on ferroic materials (ferroelectrics, ferromagnets and multiferroics), as well as nanostructures based on ferroic patterns or other type of self-assembled patterns.

Hottest cool results

By Saeedeh Farokhipoor, Cesar Magén et al. Nature 515, 379 (20 November 2014) DOI:doi:10.1038/nature13918

Fig. 1
Fig. 1

Due to large local stresses, domain walls can promote the formation of new phases and function in some sense as nanoscale chemical reactors. We have synthesized a novel 2D ferromagnetic phase at the domain walls of the orthorhombic perovskite TbMnO3, which was grown in thin layers under epitaxial strain on SrTiO3 substrates. This phase has never been observed before and cannot be made by other chemical routes. The density of the domain walls can be tuned by changing the epitaxial strain. In this way, the distance between ferromagnetic sheets can be made as small as 5 nanometres in ultrathin films, such that the new phase at domain walls represents up to 25% of the film volume. The general concept of using domain walls of epitaxial oxides to promote the formation of unusual phases is applicable to other materials systems, thus giving access to new classes of nanoscale materials for applications in nanoelectronics and spintronics.

News & Views (Nature): Reactive walls by P.hilippe Ghosez and Jean-Marc Triscone.
Explained for a general reader by René Fransen: Science Linx- RuG
Press releases: University of Groningen, CONITEC,  Max Planck Institute

Fig. 2
Fig. 2

By Sylvia Matzen, Oleksiy Nesterov et al. Nature Communications 5, 4415 (2014)

With shrinking device sizes, controlling domain formation in nano ferroelectrics becomes crucial. Periodic nano domains that self-organize into ‘superdomains’ have been recently observed, mainly at crystal edges or in laterally confined nano objects. Here we show that in extended, strain-engineered thin films, superdomains with purely in-plane polarization form to mimic the single-domain ground state, a new insight that allows a priori design of these hierarchical domain architectures. Importantly, superdomains behave like strain- neutral entities whose resultant polarization can be reversibly switched by 90°, offering promising perspectives for novel device geometries

Last modified:15 May 2024 3.33 p.m.
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