Thermal stability of 2DEG at amorphous LaAlO3/crystalline SrTiO3 heterointerfaces

Abstract

At present, the generation of heterostructures with two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in amorphous LaAlO3 (a-LAO)/SrTiO3(STO) has been achieved. Herein, we analysed thermal stability of 2DEG at a-LAO/STO interfaces in comparison with 2DEG at crystalline LaAlO3 (c-LAO)/STO interfaces. To create 2DEG at LAO/STO interface, regardless of growing temperature from 25 to 700 degrees C, we found that environment with oxygen deficient during the deposition of LAO overlayer is essentially required. That indicates that the oxygen-poor condition in the system is more essential than the crystal line nature of LAO layer. 2DEG at a-LAO/STO interface is depleted upon ex situ annealing at 300 degrees C under 300 Torr of oxygen pressure, while that in c-LAO/STO interface is still maintained. Our result suggests that the LAO overlayer crystallinity critically affects the thermal-annealing-induced depletion of 2DEG at a-LAO/STO interface rather than the generation of 2DEG. We clearly provide that amorphous TiOx can efficiently prevent the thermal degradation of 2DEG at the a-LAO/STO interface, which gives a cornerstone for achieving thermal-stable 2DEG at a-LAO/STO interface.