Ultrahigh Carrier Mobilities in Ferroelectric Domain Wall Corbino Cones at Room Temperature

• Published in: Advanced materials (Weinheim) Vol. 34; no. 32; pp. e2204298 - n/a
• Main Authors: McCluskey, Conor J., Colbear, Matthew G., McConville, James P. V., McCartan, Shane J., Maguire, Jesi R., Conroy, Michele, Moore, Kalani, Harvey, Alan, Trier, Felix, Bangert, Ursel, Gruverman, Alexei, Bibes, Manuel, Kumar, Amit, McQuaid, Raymond G. P., Gregg, J. Marty
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-08-2022; John Wiley and Sons Inc
• Subjects: carrier mobility; Charge transport; Conduction; Corbino disks; Domain walls; Electric contacts; Ferroelectric domains; Ferroelectric materials; Ferroelectricity; ferroelectrics; Insulators; Lanthanum; Lithium niobates; Magnetic domains; Magnetism; Magnetoresistance; Magnetoresistivity; Materials science; Room temperature; Strontium titanates; Thin films; magnetoresistance; carrier mobility; ferroelectrics; domain walls; Corbino disks
• ISSN: 0935-9648; 1521-4095; 1521-4095
• DOI: 10.1002/adma.202204298

Recently, electrically conducting heterointerfaces between dissimilar band insulators (such as lanthanum aluminate and strontium titanate) have attracted considerable research interest. Charge transport and fundamental aspects of conduction have been thoroughly explored. Perhaps surprisingly, similar studies on conceptually much simpler conducting homointerfaces, such as domain walls, are not nearly so well developed. Addressing this disparity, magnetoresistance is herein reported in approximately conical 180° charged domain walls, in partially switched ferroelectric thin‐film single‐crystal lithium niobate. This system is ideal for such measurements: first, the conductivity difference between domains and domain walls is unusually large (a factor of 1013) and hence currents driven through the thin film, between planar top and bottom electrodes, are overwhelmingly channeled along the walls; second, when electrical contact is made to the top and bottom of the domain walls and a magnetic field is applied along their cone axes, then the test geometry mirrors that of a Corbino disk: a textbook arrangement for geometric magnetoresistance measurement. Data imply carriers with extremely high room‐temperature Hall mobilities of up to ≈3700 cm2 V−1 s−1. This is an unparalleled value for oxide interfaces (and for bulk oxides) comparable to mobilities in other systems seen at cryogenic, rather than at room, temperature.
Magnetoresistance is measured in conical 180° charged domain walls, in ferroelectric lithium niobate. Extracted carrier mobilities are extremely high, up to ≈3700 cm2 V−1 s−1. This is an unparalleled value for oxide interfaces (and for bulk oxides too) and is most comparable to mobilities in other systems typically seen at cryogenic, rather than at room, temperature.