Transition metal oxides (TMOs) are characterized by a richness of properties due to the intricate nature of the metal-oxygen bond and the strong coupling between charge, lattice, spin and orbital degrees of freedom. In the last decades, inspired by the successful semiconductor-technology approach, many efforts have been devoted in refining the oxide-thin-film deposition techniques and their associated in-situ diagnostic tools with the aim of controlling the growth of TMOs down to a single atomic layer.

A critical consequence of the thickness reduction is the increasing influence of the interfaces/surfaces in determining the resulting physical properties in complex oxide heterostructures. To illustrate the significance of this scenario, I will show how the properties of some selected ferroelectric and ferromagnetic oxide systems are affected by the presence of multiple interfaces in the ultrathin limit.

Bio:

Gabriele De Luca is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) since January 2023. He performed his undergraduate studies in Physics in Napoli and received his Ph.D. degree in Materials Science from ETH Zürich in 2017. Later, he has been a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zürich between 2018-2021 and a visiting researcher in University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2019. He was then awarded a SNF Postdoc.Mobility grant (Swiss equivalent to MSCA) to work in the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) between 2021-2022. His research focuses on the growth and characterization of complex oxide heterostructures and the evolution of their functional properties at the nanoscale.