Emerging Self-Assembled Oxide–Metal Nanocomposite Thin Films with Coupled Multifunctionalities

Beyond oxide-oxide functional nanocomposite films which have been widely explored in the past two decades of this century, oxide-metal nanocomposites films have attracted increasing interests in recent years owing to their wide range of functionalities, such as metamaterials with plasmonic and hyperbolic optical properties, and ferroelectric, ferromagnetic and multiferroic behaviors. In this talk, I will focus on introducing the recently explored oxide-metal vertically aligned nanocomposite (VAN) thin films showing exotic optical, electrical, and magnetic properties coupling effect. Detailed transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) characterization work revealed the film epitaxy and crystallographic lattice matching relation at metal/oxide interfaces. The anisotropic film morphology results in the corresponding anisotropic physical properties such as plasmonic hyperbolic dispersion and magnetism anisotropy. In situ TEM heating experiment clarified the excellent thermal stability of the oxide-metal nanocomposite thin film. The unique physical properties and coupled functionalities of the VAN films enable them to have great potential in nanoelectronic and nanophotonic devices applications.