Perovskite Oxides Tunable by Electromechanical and Electrothermal Couplings

Abstract

Perovskite oxide thin films is an attractive material group due to their unique multi-functionalities. To broaden the impact of perovskite oxides to practical electronic device applications, their electrical properties will need to be tunable by external means. In this work, we show that electrical conductivity of perovskite STO (SrTiO3) thin films can be largely tuned by mechanical stress (electromechanical coupling) and thermal annealing (electrothermal coupling). The conductive atomic force microscope setup was carefully calibrated to enable precise measurements of electrical response upon application of varying forces, resulting in a high electromechanical coupling sensitivity of up to ~1,000 Sm-1MPa-1. The thermal annealing study also suggests that electrical conductivity of STO is strongly affected by the ambient temperature due to the varying amount of oxygen vacancies.