Strain related new sciences and devices in low-dimensional binary oxides

Abstract

The possibility of generating a large range of elastic strain in low-dimensional materials offers a vast design space that has led to a plethora of scientific and technological breakthroughs in the field of materials science. The concept of using the elastic strain to engineer physical properties of materials has been found extremely useful in many areas such as enhancing the charge mobility in microelectronics and ionics, inducing new physical properties, regulating phase transitions in complex materials, band dispersion engineering in quantum well lasers, semiconductor band gap engineering and improving electrochemical performance of materials. Throughout these progresses in elastic strain engineering, low-dimensional binary oxides have demonstrated their unique advantages over other materials systems: high electron/hole mobility, high optoelectronic quantum efficiency, low defects density, simple thermodynamics/kinetics, versatile functionality and intriguing responses to elastic strain. This article reviews the most significant milestones of elastic strain engineering in low-dimensional binary oxides. It provides reports and analyses of model binary oxide materials, strain-related phenomena, methods of introducing and characterizing strains in low-dimensional materials and strain engineered physical properties. It is our hope that this review can inspire more researchers seeking new scientific understanding as well as technological breakthroughs to explore this rich field of low-dimensional strained binary oxides.