Enabling two-dimensional electron gas with high room-temperature electron mobility exceeding 100 cm$^2$/Vs at a perovskite oxide interface

TL;DR

This paper reports the creation of a high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas at a perovskite oxide interface, achieving record room-temperature electron mobility exceeding 100 cm$^2$/Vs, enabling advanced oxide electronic devices.

Contribution

It introduces a controlled method to form 2DEGs at oxide interfaces away from substrates with enhanced mobility, expanding potential device integration options.

Findings

Achieved room-temperature electron mobility up to 119 cm$^2$/Vs.

Demonstrated controlled 2DEG formation at BaSnO$_3$/LaInO$_3$ interface.

Enabled in-situ interface optimization during epitaxial growth.

Abstract

In perovskite oxide heterostructures, bulk functional properties coexist with emergent physical phenomena at epitaxial interfaces. Notably, charge transfer at the interface between two insulating oxide layers can lead to the formation of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) with possible applications in, e.g., high-electronmobility transistors and ferroelectric field-effect transistors. So far, the realization of oxide 2DEGs is, however, largely limited to the interface between the single-crystal substrate and epitaxial film, preventing their deliberate placement inside a larger device architecture. Additionally, the substrate-limited quality of perovskite oxide interfaces hampers room-temperature 2DEG performance due to notoriously low electron mobility. In this work, we demonstrate the controlled creation of an interfacial 2DEG at the epitaxial interface between perovskite oxides BaSnO$_3$ and LaInO$_3$ with enhanced room-temperature electron mobilities up to 119 cm$^2$/Vs - the highest room-temperature value reported so far for a perovskite oxide 2DEG. Using a combination of state-of-the-art deposition modes during oxide molecular beam epitaxy, our approach opens up another degree of freedom in optimization and $in$-$situ$ control of the interface between two epitaxial oxide layers away from the substrate interface. We thus expect our approach to apply to the general class of perovskite oxide 2DEG systems and to enable their improved compatibility with novel device concepts and integration across materials platforms.