A perspective on conducting domain walls and possibilities for ephemeral electronics

Abstract

This Perspective briefly summarizes what is known about electrically conducting domain walls. It highlights insights into the underlying causes of enhanced current transport, developed despite the frustrations and limitations of the standard two-probe source and drain measurements that have dominated the field to date (because of the pervasive use of conventional conducting atomic force microscopy). This perspective gives a feel for the unique possibilities offered by conducting domain walls, in future forms of agile electronics. Indeed, it is imagined that domain walls and domain wall junctions might eventually allow for entire nanoscale circuits (devices and their interconnects) to be created in one instant, for one purpose, only to be wiped clean and rewritten in a different form, for a different purpose, in the next instant. Malleable domain wall network architecture that can continually metamorphose could represent a kind of technological genie, granting wishes on demand for radical moment-to-moment changes in electronic function.