Assembled Functional Oxide Membrane Heterostructures

Oxide materials have enormous potential as the fundamental building block of new generations of electronic, magnetic, optical and electromechanical devices. We create these materials by artificially layering epitaxial materials with atomic layer control, and also stacking epitaxial membranes of materials with incompatible structure and lattice constant [1]. Our goal is to create new materials and heterostructures with novel properties likely to advance basic science and future applications. I will present advances in assembled single crystal functional oxide membrane heterostructures, including giant piezo-driven low-voltage magnetoelectric coupling in ferromagnetic/piezoelectric membrane heterostructures [2] and electronically reconfigurable LaAlO₃/SrTiO₃ complex-oxide heterostructure free-standing membranes [3], and highlight several examples of how our research has played a role in understanding fundamental solid state phenomena and in the discovery of new materials. I will discuss the challenges and opportunities in this exciting field.<br/>[1] H. S. Kum et al. <i>Nature</i>, <b>578</b>, 78 (2020)<br/>[2] S. Lindemann et al., <i>Science Advances</i>, in press (2021)<br/>[3] K. Eom et al., <i>Science Advances</i>, <b>7</b>, eabh1284 (2021)<br/>This work has been done in collaboration with S. Lindemann, J. Irwin, G.-Y. Kim, B. Wang, J. J. Wang, J. M. Hu, L. Q. Chen, S. Y. Choi, M. S. Rzchowski, K. Eom, M. Yu, J. Seo, D. Yang, H. Lee, J.-W. Lee, P. Irvin, S. H. Oh, J. Levy.<br/>This research is funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s EPiQS Initiative, Grant GBMF9065 to C.B.E., a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (N00014-15-1-2847), the Army Research Office through Grant W911NF-17-1-0462, and the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, (DE-FG02-06ER46327).