OXIDE NANOPHYSICS

The Oxide Nanoelectronics Group studies functional properties and phase transitions of oxides at the nanoscale. The interest in oxides stems from the vast array of functional properties they display; the principal properties that we study are ferroelectricity, piezoelectricity, electronic transport (including metal-insulator transitions and magnetorresistance), magnetoelectricity, elasticity and flexoelectricity. Our group has expertise in and facilities for the fabrication of epitaxial thin films and heterostructures, and for their characterization. We have a state of the art atomic force microscopes with in-situ control of temperature and magnetic fields in the Tesla range, a home-customized dynamic mechanical analyser for elastic and flexoelectric characterisation, a cryo-oven with expanded temperature range from 10K to 800K connected to an impedance analyser and a ferroelectric tester, and an holographic interferometer.