Correlated Topological Oxide Heterostructures for Energy-Efficient Quantum Microelectronics

Complex oxides are known to possess the full spectrum of fascinating properties, including magnetism, colossal magnetoresistance, superconductivity, ferroelectricity, ionic conductivity, and more. The breadth of remarkable properties is the consequence of strong coupling among charge, spin, orbital, and lattice degrees of freedom. Spurred by recent advances in the synthesis of such artificial materials at the atomic scale, the physics of oxide heterostructures containing atomically smooth layers of such correlated electron materials with abrupt interfaces is a rapidly growing area. We have established a growth technique to control complex oxides at the level of unit cell thickness by pulsed laser deposition. The atomic-scale growth control enables to assemble materials from atoms to functional systems in a programmable manner, yielding many intriguing physical properties that cannot be found in bulk counterparts. In this talk, examples of complex oxide thin films and heterostructures grown by advanced pulsed laser deposition and their correlated and topological properties will be presented, highlighting the importance of precision synthesis for heterostructuring, interfacing, and straining. The main topics include (1) oxide Dirac semimetals with extreme high mobility that exhibit fractional occupation of the Landau level and (2) corrected metal Pd-based delafossites as an extreme metal that may revolutionize interconnects in the next generation of microelectronics by their excellent electronic conductivity combined with Mottness.<br/>*This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.