title: Electrical-field-driven metal-insulator transition tuned with self-aligned atomic defects.
abstract: Recently, significant attention has been paid to the resistance switching (RS) behaviour in Fe3O4 and it was explained through the analogy of the electrically driven metal-insulator transition based on the quantum tunneling theory. Here, we propose a method to experimentally support this explanation and provide a way to tune the critical switching parameter by introducing self-aligned localized impurities through the growth of Fe3O4 thin films on stepped SrTiO3 substrates. Anisotropic behavior in the RS was observed, where a lower switching voltage in the range of 10(4) V cm(-1) is required to switch Fe3O4 from a high conducting state to a low conducting state when the electrical field is applied along the steps. The anisotropic RS behavior is attributed to a high density array of anti-phase boundaries (APBs) formed at the step edges and thus are aligned along the same direction in the film which act as a train of hotspot forming conduits for resonant tunneling. Our experimental studies open an interesting window to tune the electrical-field-driven metal-insulator transition in strongly correlated systems.
authors.affiliation: School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, People's Republic of China. wuhc@bit.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Askar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Syrlybekov
authors.forename: Han-Chun
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Ozhet
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Mauit
authors.forename: Ye-Cun
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Pierce
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Maguire
authors.forename: Abbas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khalid
authors.forename: Cormac Ó
authors.initials: CÓ
authors.lastname: Coileáin
authors.forename: Leo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Farrell
authors.forename: Cheng-Lin
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Heng
authors.forename: Mohamed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Abid
authors.forename: Huajun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Hong-Zhou
authors.initials: HZ
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Igor V
authors.initials: IV
authors.lastname: Shvets