2D surprises at the surface of 3D materials: confined electron systems in transition metal oxides

TL;DR

This review discusses the development and understanding of two-dimensional electron systems at the surfaces of transition metal oxides, highlighting experimental techniques, physical phenomena, and potential for device applications.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of surface-confined 2DES in TMOs, emphasizing recent advances in ARPES studies and proposing new fabrication methods for future research.

Findings

Confined electron systems are observed at TMO surfaces with complex physics.

Oxygen vacancies are key to 2DES formation.

Surface orientation influences the electronic structure.

Abstract

The scope of this article is to review the state-of-the-art in the field of confined electron systems generated at the bare surfaces of transition metal oxides (TMOs). This scientific field is a prime example of a domain where two-dimensional physics and photoemission-based spectroscopic techniques have together set up the development of the story. The discovery of a high-mobility two-dimensional electron system (2DES) at interfaces of transition metal oxides has attracted an immense scientific interest due to new opportunities opened in the emerging field of oxide electronics. The subsequent paradigm shift from interfaces to the bare surfaces of TMOs made the confined electron system accessible to surface-sensitive spectroscopic techniques and this new era is the focus of the present article. We describe how results by means of Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy (ARPES) establish the presence of confined electron carriers at the bare surface of SrTiO$_{3}$(100), which exhibit complex physics phenomena such as orbital ordering, electron-phonon interactions and spin splitting. The key element behind the 2DES generation is oxygen vacancies. Moreover, we review the experimental evidence on the generation of 2DESs on surfaces with different orientation, as well as on different TMO substrates. The electronic structure of the confined electron system responds to such changes, thereby providing external means for engineering its properties. Finally, we identify new directions for future research by introducing a device-friendly fabrication protocol for the generation of 2DESs on TMO surfaces.