Oxide Interface Physics

We are a new experimental condensed matter group in the Physik-Institut of the University of Zurich.

Our research focuses on oxide materials. We are interested in the structure-property relation of these compounds when grown into atomically-engineered heterostructures. In bulk, complex oxides display a large variety of functionalities (magnetism, metal-to-insulator transitions, ferroelectricity, etc.). By growing them layer by layer, i.e. ultrathin epitaxial films or superlattices, we aim to further tune their properties and even access novel electronic behaviours. Strain, reduced dimensionalities or charge transfer are examples of the phenomena we tackle at the interfaces between different oxide compounds. In addition to the extensively investigated perovskite structure, we are also exploring the more complex double-perovskite structure. We grow our samples by rf magnetron sputtering and we characterize them with a variety of techniques (x-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, SQUID-magnetometry, absorption spectroscopy, etc.)