Communications Physics (May 2024)

Stoichiometric control of electron mobility and 2D superconductivity at LaAlO3-SrTiO3 interfaces

  • Gyanendra Singh,
  • Roger Guzman,
  • Guilhem Saïz,
  • Wu Zhou,
  • Jaume Gazquez,
  • Fereshteh Masoudinia,
  • Dag Winkler,
  • Tord Claeson,
  • Jordi Fraxedas,
  • Nicolas Bergeal,
  • Gervasi Herranz,
  • Alexei Kalaboukhov

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-024-01644-3
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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Abstract SrTiO3-based conducting interfaces, which exhibit coexistence of gate-tunable 2D superconductivity and strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling (RSOC), are candidates to host topological superconductive phases. Yet, superconductivity is usually in the dirty limit, which tends to suppress nonconventional pairing and therefore challenges these expectations. Here we report on LaAlO3/SrTiO3 (LAO/STO) interfaces with large mobility and mean free paths comparable to the superconducting coherence length, approaching the clean limit for superconductivity. We further show that the carrier density, mobility, and formation of the superconducting condensate are controlled by the fine-tuning of La/Al chemical ratio in the LAO film. We find a region in the superconducting phase diagram where the critical temperature is not suppressed below the Lifshitz transition, at odds with previous experimental investigations. These findings point out the relevance of achieving a clean-limit regime to enhance the observation of unconventional pairing mechanisms in these systems.