Oxide Nanoelectronics On Demand

Condensed Matter Seminars

Speaker: Jeremy Levy, University of Pittsburgh
Date & Time: October 31, 2013 14:00 - 15:00
Location: UBC, Hennings 318
Local Contact: Joshua Folk
Intended Audience: Graduate

Electronic confinement at nanoscale dimensions remains a central means of science and technology. I will describe a novel method for producing electronic nanostructures at the interface between two normally insulating oxides, LaAlO₃ and SrTiO₃. Nanostructures with features as small as 2 nm–comparable to the mean spacing between electrons–are “written” using a conductive atomic force microscope (AFM) technique. The oxide “canvases” are reconfigurable and can be erased and rewritten indefinitely. A wide variety of device concepts have already been demonstrated, including nanowires, tunnel barriers, Fabry-Perot cavities, rectifying junctions, field-effect transistors, single-electron transistors, superconducting nanowires, quantum dots and nanoscale THz emitters and detectors. This new, on-demand nanoelectronics platform has the potential for widespread scientific and technological exploitation.