Direct Imaging of Sketched Conductive Nanostructures at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 Interface

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates microwave impedance microscopy to directly visualize nanoscale conductance at the buried LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface, enabling detailed study of local electronic properties and device-relevant phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a method for high-resolution conductivity imaging of sketched nanostructures at the LAO/STO interface, revealing local conductance and phase transitions.

Findings

Conductivity imaging with ~100 nm resolution achieved.

Tip-induced insulator-to-metal transition observed at +4 V.

Sheet conductance from MIM matches transport measurements.

Abstract

Nanoscale control of the quasi-two-dimensional electron gas at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 (LAO/STO) interface by a conductive probe tip has triggered the development of a number of electronic devices. While the spatial distribution of the conductance is crucial for such devices, it is challenging to directly visualize the local electrical properties at the buried interface. Here we demonstrate conductivity imaging of sketched nanostructures at the LAO/STO interface by microwave impedance microscopy (MIM) with a lateral resolution on the order of 100 nm. The sheet conductance extracted from the MIM data agrees with the transport measurement. The tip-induced insulator-to-metal transition is observed above a threshold voltage of +4 V. Our work paves the way to study emergent phenomena at oxide interfaces by probing nanoscale conductance distribution.