Quasiparticle Interference on Cubic Perovskite Oxide Surfaces

Scanning tunneling spectroscopy studies of topological materials

Topological materials have become promising materials for next-generation devices by utilizing their exotic electronic states. Their exotic states caused by spin-orbital coupling usually locate on the surfaces or at the edges. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) is a powerful tool to reveal the local electronic structures of condensed matters. Therefore, STS provides us with an almost perfect method to access the exotic states of topological materials. In this topical review, we report the current investigations by several methods based on the STS technique for layered topological material from transition metal dichalcogenide Weyl semimetals (WTe₂ and MoTe₂) to two dimensional topological insulators (layered bismuth and silicene). The electronic characteristics of these layered topological materials are experimentally identified.

Real-Space Imaging of Orbital Selectivity on SrTiO3(001) Surface

Real-space access of the orbital degree of freedom in complex oxides is still challenging due to intricate electronic hybridization. Here, we report a direct observation of reproducible orbital-selective tunneling on a novel SrTiO₃(001) surface by scanning tunneling microscopy. The electronic structures reversibly switch between two different sets of symmetries depending on the sample bias, which is accompanied by a remarkable change in energy-dependent spectroscopy data. Tunneling spectrum combined with density functional theory calculations elucidates that symmetry-breaking at the surface determines the crystal-splitting field of e_g/t_2g orbitals with a strong in-plane anisotropy so that electrons alternatingly fill e_g and t_2g orbitals during the imaging process with different biases. This surface superstructure provides a new strategy toward understanding orbital textures and orbital selectivity in complex oxides.

Tailoring Materials for Mottronics: Excess Oxygen Doping of a Prototypical Mott Insulator

The Mott transistor is a paradigm for a new class of electronic devices-often referred to by the term Mottronics-which are based on charge correlations between the electrons. Since correlation-induced insulating phases of most oxide compounds are usually very robust, new methods have to be developed to push such materials right to the boundary to the metallic phase in order to enable the metal-insulator transition to be switched by electric gating. Here, it is demonstrated that thin films of the prototypical Mott insulator LaTiO₃ grown by pulsed laser deposition under oxygen atmosphere are readily tuned by excess oxygen doping across the line of the band-filling controlled Mott transition in the electronic phase diagram. The detected insulator to metal transition is characterized by a strong change in resistivity of several orders of magnitude. The use of suitable substrates and capping layers to inhibit oxygen diffusion facilitates full control of the oxygen content and renders the films stable against exposure to ambient conditions. These achievements represent a significant advancement in control and tuning of the electronic properties of LaTiO_3+x thin films making it a promising channel material in future Mottronic devices.

Atomic-scale visualization of oxide thin-film surfaces

The interfaces of complex oxide heterostructures exhibit intriguing phenomena not observed in their constituent materials. The oxide thin-film growth of such heterostructures has been successfully controlled with unit-cell precision; however, atomic-scale understandings of oxide thin-film surfaces and interfaces have remained insufficient. We examined, with atomic precision, the surface and electronic structures of oxide thin films and their growth processes using low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy. Our results reveal that oxide thin-film surface structures are complicated in contrast to the general perception and that atomically ordered surfaces can be achieved with careful attention to the surface preparation. Such atomically ordered oxide thin-film surfaces offer great opportunities not only for investigating the microscopic origins of interfacial phenomena but also for exploring new surface phenomena and for studying the electronic states of complex oxides that are inaccessible using bulk samples.