High Sensitivity Variable-temperature Infrared Nanoscopy of Conducting Oxide Interfaces

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2019 Jun 26

PMID 31235858

Citations 4

Authors

Weiwei Luo

Margherita Boselli

Jean-Marie Poumirol

Ivan Ardizzone

Jeremie Teyssier

Dirk van der Marel

Stefano Gariglio

Jean-Marc Triscone

Alexey B Kuzmenko

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Probing the local transport properties of two-dimensional electron systems (2DES) confined at buried interfaces requires a non-invasive technique with a high spatial resolution operating in a broad temperature range. In this paper, we investigate the scattering-type scanning near field optical microscopy as a tool for studying the conducting LaAlO/SrTiO interface from room temperature down to 6 K. We show that the near-field optical signal, in particular its phase component, is highly sensitive to the transport properties of the electron system present at the interface. Our modeling reveals that such sensitivity originates from the interaction of the AFM tip with coupled plasmon-phonon modes with a small penetration depth. The model allows us to quantitatively correlate changes in the optical signal with the variation of the 2DES transport properties induced by cooling and by electrostatic gating. To probe the spatial resolution of the technique, we image conducting nano-channels written in insulating heterostructures with a voltage-biased tip of an atomic force microscope.

Citing Articles

Highly confined epsilon-near-zero and surface phonon polaritons in SrTiO membranes.

Xu R, Crassee I, Bechtel H, Zhou Y, Bercher A, Korosec L Nat Commun. 2024; 15(1):4743.

PMID: 38834672 PMC: 11150425. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47917-x.

Thermal and electrostatic tuning of surface phonon-polaritons in LaAlO/SrTiO heterostructures.

Zhou Y, Waelchli A, Boselli M, Crassee I, Bercher A, Luo W Nat Commun. 2023; 14(1):7686.

PMID: 38001108 PMC: 10673882. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43464-z.

Local inhomogeneities resolved by scanning probe techniques and their impact on local 2DEG formation in oxide heterostructures.

Rose M, Barnett J, Wendland D, Hensling F, Boergers J, Moors M Nanoscale Adv. 2022; 3(14):4145-4155.

PMID: 36132831 PMC: 9419657. DOI: 10.1039/d1na00190f.

Mapping the conducting channels formed along extended defects in SrTiO by means of scanning near-field optical microscopy.

Rodenbucher C, Bittkau K, Bihlmayer G, Wrana D, Gensch T, Korte C Sci Rep. 2020; 10(1):17763.

PMID: 33082447 PMC: 7576817. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-74645-1.

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