The Electronic Properties of Extended Defects in SrTiO3—A Case Study of a Real Bicrystal Boundary

Rodenbücher, Christian; Wrana, Dominik; Gensch, Thomas; Krok, Franciszek; Korte, Carsten; Szot, Krzysztof

doi:10.3390/cryst10080665

Open AccessArticle

The Electronic Properties of Extended Defects in SrTiO₃—A Case Study of a Real Bicrystal Boundary

by

Christian Rodenbücher

^1,*

,

Dominik Wrana

²,

Thomas Gensch

³

,

Franciszek Krok

²,

Carsten Korte

¹ and

Krzysztof Szot

^4,5

¹

Institute of Energy and Climate Research (IEK-14), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, 52425 Jülich, Germany

²

Marian Smoluchowski Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University, 30-348 Krakow, Poland

³

Institute of Biological Information Processing (IBI-1), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, 52425 Jülich, Germany

⁴

Institute of Physics, University of Silesia, 41-500 Chorzów, Poland

⁵

aixACCT Systems GmbH, 52068 Aachen, Germany

^*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Crystals 2020, 10(8), 665; https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst10080665

Submission received: 30 June 2020 / Revised: 16 July 2020 / Accepted: 17 July 2020 / Published: 2 August 2020

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Electronic Phenomena of Transition Metal Oxides)

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Abstract

This study investigates the impact of extended defects such as dislocations on the electronic properties of SrTiO₃ by using a 36.8° bicrystal as a model system. In order to evaluate the hypothesis that dislocations can serve as preferential reduction sites, which has been proposed in the literature on the basis of ab initio simulations, as well as on experiments employing local-conductivity atomic force microscopy (LC-AFM), detailed investigations of the bicrystal boundary are conducted. In addition to LC-AFM, fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) is applied herein as a complementary method for mapping the local electronic properties on the microscale. Both techniques confirm that the electronic structure and electronic transport in dislocation-rich regions significantly differ from those of undistorted SrTiO₃. Upon thermal reduction, a further confinement of conductivity to the bicrystal boundary region was found, indicating that extended defects can indeed be regarded as the origin of filament formation. This leads to the evolution of inhomogeneous properties of defective SrTiO₃ on the nano- and microscales.

Keywords: strontium titanate; bicrystal; extended defects; photoluminescence

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Rodenbücher, C.; Wrana, D.; Gensch, T.; Krok, F.; Korte, C.; Szot, K. The Electronic Properties of Extended Defects in SrTiO₃—A Case Study of a Real Bicrystal Boundary. Crystals 2020, 10, 665. https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst10080665

AMA Style

Rodenbücher C, Wrana D, Gensch T, Krok F, Korte C, Szot K. The Electronic Properties of Extended Defects in SrTiO₃—A Case Study of a Real Bicrystal Boundary. Crystals. 2020; 10(8):665. https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst10080665

Chicago/Turabian Style

Rodenbücher, Christian, Dominik Wrana, Thomas Gensch, Franciszek Krok, Carsten Korte, and Krzysztof Szot. 2020. "The Electronic Properties of Extended Defects in SrTiO₃—A Case Study of a Real Bicrystal Boundary" Crystals 10, no. 8: 665. https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst10080665

APA Style

Rodenbücher, C., Wrana, D., Gensch, T., Krok, F., Korte, C., & Szot, K. (2020). The Electronic Properties of Extended Defects in SrTiO₃—A Case Study of a Real Bicrystal Boundary. Crystals, 10(8), 665. https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst10080665

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The Electronic Properties of Extended Defects in SrTiO₃—A Case Study of a Real Bicrystal Boundary

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