Local Electrostatic Imaging of Striped Domain Order in LaAlO3/SrTiO3

Abstract

The emerging field of complex oxide interfaces is generically built on one of the most celebrated substrates - strontium titanate (SrTiO3). This material hosts a range of phenomena, including ferroelasticity, incipient ferroelectricity, and most puzzlingly, contested giant piezoelectricity. Although these properties may markedly influence the oxide interfaces, especially on microscopic length scales, the lack of local probes capable of studying such buried systems has left their effects largely unexplored. Here we use a scanning charge detector - a nanotube single-electron transistor - to noninvasively image the electrostatic landscape and local mechanical response in the prototypical LaAlO3/SrTiO3 system with unprecedented sensitivity. Our measurements reveal that on microscopic scales SrTiO3 exhibits large anomalous piezoelectricity with curious spatial dependence. Through electrostatic imaging we unravel the microscopic origin for this extrinsic piezoelectricity, demonstrating its direct, quantitative connection to the motion of locally ordered tetragonal domains under applied gate voltage. These domains create striped potential modulations that can markedly influence the two-dimensional electron system at the conducting interface. Our results have broad implications to all complex oxide interfaces built on SrTiO3 and demonstrate the importance of microscopic structure to the physics of electrons at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface.

MH and JAS contributed equally to this work; supplementary information included

References in corpus (6)

• Magnetic effects at the interface between nonmagnetic oxides
• Electric Field Control of the LaAlO${}_3$/SrTiO${}_3$ Interface Ground State
• Strain gradient induced polarization in SrTiO3 single crystals
• Locally enhanced conductivity due to the tetragonal domain structure in LaAlO${}_3$/SrTiO${}_3$ heterointerfaces
• Rashba induced magnetoconductance oscillations in the LaAlO3-SrTiO3 heterostructure
• Large Negative Electronic Compressibility of LaAlO3-SrTiO3 Interfaces with Ultrathin LaAlO3 Layers

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