title: Tunneling electroresistance induced by interfacial phase transitions in ultrathin oxide heterostructures.
abstract: The ferroelectric (FE) control of electronic transport is one of the emerging technologies in oxide heterostructures. Many previous studies in FE tunnel junctions (FTJs) exploited solely the differences in the electrostatic potential across the FTJs that are induced by changes in the FE polarization direction. Here, we show that in practice the junction current ratios between the two polarization states can be further enhanced by the electrostatic modification in the correlated electron oxide electrodes, and that FTJs with nanometer thin layers can effectively produce a considerably large electroresistance ratio at room temperature. To understand these surprising results, we employed an additional control parameter, which is related to the crossing of electronic and magnetic phase boundaries of the correlated electron oxide. The FE-induced phase modulation at the heterointerface ultimately results in an enhanced electroresistance effect. Our study highlights that the strong coupling between degrees of freedom across heterointerfaces could yield versatile and novel applications in oxide electronics.
authors.affiliation: Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory , Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, United States.
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Woo Seok
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Hyoungjeen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jeen
authors.forename: Shuai
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Yunseok
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Myung-Geun
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Yimei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Sergei V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Kalinin
authors.forename: Elbio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dagotto
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Egami
authors.forename: Ho Nyung
authors.initials: HN
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D004553:Electric Conductivity; D004583:Electrons; D007501:Iron / Q000737:chemistry*; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry; D010087:Oxides / Q000737:chemistry*; D044367:Phase Transition
chemical_list: D010087:Oxides; D007501:Iron