Editor's Summary
4 December 2008
On-off superconductivity
It has been a long-standing goal in applied physics to construct devices in which superconductivity can be switched on and off with an electric field. In the past few years, a promising candidate has emerged; interfaces between complex oxides, in which a variety of electronic phases can be obtained. It was recently shown that the conducting interface between LaAlO3 and SrTiO3 (both in bulk form are insulators) can become superconducting. Caviglia et al. now use the electric field effect, which tunes the charge carrier density, to explore the phase diagram of the system. A remarkable feature is that superconductivity can be switched on and off, driving a quantum phase transition between a two-dimensional superconducting and insulating state.
News and Views: Materials science: Clear leap for superconductors
Electric fields offer an innovative means of controlling condensed-matter systems. The approach has been applied to nanoscale oxide interfaces, for studying the physics of two-dimensional superconductors.
Darrell G. Schlom & Charles H. Ahn
doi:10.1038/456582a
Letter: Electric field control of the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface ground state
A. D. Caviglia, S. Gariglio, N. Reyren, D. Jaccard, T. Schneider, M. Gabay, S. Thiel, G. Hammerl, J. Mannhart & J.-M. Triscone
doi:10.1038/nature07576
