Fabricating superconducting interfaces between artificially grown LaAlO3 and SrTiO3 thin films

Abstract

Realization of a fully metallic two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) at the interface between artificially grown LaAlO3 and SrTiO3 thin films has been an exciting challenge. Here we present for the first time the successful realization of a superconducting 2DEG at interfaces between artificially grown LaAlO3 and SrTiO3 thin films. Our results highlight the importance of two factors—the growth temperature and the SrTiO3 termination. We use local friction force microscopy and transport measurements to determine that in normal growth conditions the absence of a robust metallic state at low temperature in the artificially grown LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface is due to the nanoscale SrO segregation occurring on the SrTiO3 film surface during the growth and the associated defects in the SrTiO3 film. By adopting an extremely high SrTiO3 growth temperature, we demonstrate a way to realize metallic, down to the lowest temperature, and superconducting 2DEG at interfaces between LaAlO3 layers and artificially grown SrTiO3 thin films. This study paves the way to the realization of functional LaAlO3/SrTiO3 superlattices and/or artificial LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interfaces on other substrates.