Two-dimensional superconductivity at a Mott-Insulator/Band-Insulator interface: LaTiO3/SrTiO3

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of two-dimensional superconductivity at the interface between LaTiO3 and SrTiO3, revealing a superconducting electron gas confined within 12 nm, with potential implications for quantum electronic devices.

Contribution

It demonstrates superconductivity at a LaTiO3/SrTiO3 interface and analyzes the electronic properties, providing new insights into oxide heterostructures involving correlated insulators.

Findings

Superconducting transition at Tc=300 mK

Electron gas confined within 12 nm

Superconductivity occurs despite strong correlations

Abstract

Transition metal oxides display a great variety of quantum electronic behaviours where correlations often play an important role. The achievement of high quality epitaxial interfaces involving such materials gives a unique opportunity to engineer artificial structures where new electronic orders take place. One of the most striking result in this area is the recent observation of a two-dimensional electron gas at the interface between a strongly correlated Mott insulator LaTiO3 and a band insulator SrTiO3. The mechanism responsible for such a behaviour is still under debate. In particular, the influence of the nature of the insulator has to be clarified. Here we show that despite the expected electronic correlations, LaTiO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures undergo a superconducting transition at a critical temperature Tc=300 mK. We have found that the superconducting electron gas is confined over a typical thickness of 12 nm. We discuss the electronic properties of this system and review the possible scenarios.