Atomic-scale imaging of nanoengineered oxygen vacancy profiles in SrTiO3

David A. Muller (), Naoyuki Nakagawa, Akira Ohtomo, John L. Grazul and Harold Y. Hwang
Additional contact information
David A. Muller: Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
Naoyuki Nakagawa: Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
Akira Ohtomo: Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
John L. Grazul: Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
Harold Y. Hwang: Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies

Nature, 2004, vol. 430, issue 7000, 657-661

Abstract: Abstract At the heart of modern oxide chemistry lies the recognition that beneficial (as well as deleterious) materials properties can be obtained by deliberate deviations of oxygen atom occupancy from the ideal stoichiometry1,2. Conversely, the capability to control and confine oxygen vacancies will be important to realize the full potential of perovskite ferroelectric materials, varistors and field-effect devices3,4. In transition metal oxides, oxygen vacancies are generally electron donors, and in strontium titanate (SrTiO3) thin films, oxygen vacancies (unlike impurity dopants) are particularly important because they tend to retain high carrier mobilities, even at high carrier densities5. Here we report the successful fabrication, using a pulsed laser deposition technique, of SrTiO3 superlattice films with oxygen doping profiles that exhibit subnanometre abruptness. We profile the vacancy concentrations on an atomic scale using annular-dark-field electron microscopy and core-level spectroscopy, and demonstrate absolute detection sensitivities of one to four oxygen vacancies. Our findings open a pathway to the microscopic study of individual vacancies and their clustering, not only in oxides, but in crystalline materials more generally.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02756 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:430:y:2004:i:7000:d:10.1038_nature02756

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature02756

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().