The 2016 oxide electronic materials and oxide interfaces roadmap

By Freddy White on November 4, 2016

We take a look at the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 2016 oxide electronics roadmap with Michael Lorenz and M. S. Ramachandra Rao.

Oxide electronic materials provide a plethora of possible applications and offer ample opportunity for scientists to probe into some of the exciting and intriguing phenomena exhibited by oxide systems and oxide interfaces. In addition to the already diverse spectrum of properties, the nanoscale form of oxides provides a new dimension of hitherto unknown phenomena due to the increased surface-to-volume ratio.

Oxide electronic materials are becoming increasingly important in a wide range of applications including transparent electronics, optoelectronics, magnetoelectronics, photonics, spintronics, thermoelectrics, piezoelectrics, power harvesting, hydrogen storage and environmental waste management. Synthesis and fabrication of these materials, as well as processing into particular device structures to suit a specific application is still a challenge. Further, characterization of these materials to understand the tunability of their properties and the novel properties that evolve due to their nanostructured nature is another facet of the challenge. The research related to the oxide electronic field is at an impressionable stage, and this has motivated us to contribute with a roadmap on ‘oxide electronic materials and oxide interfaces’.

Three stages of an oxide ring oscillator based on junction field effect transistors with n-ZnO channels and p-ZnCo₂O₄ gates, processed in the Semiconductor Physics Group, University Leipzig, by Fabian Klüpfel and Marius Grundmann.

The 2016 oxide electronics roadmap envisages the potential applications of oxide materials in cutting edge technologies and focuses on the necessary advances required to implement these materials, including both conventional and novel techniques for the synthesis, characterization, processing and fabrication of nanostructured oxides and oxide-based devices. The roadmap highlights the functional and correlated properties of of oxides in bulk, nano, thin film, multilayer and heterostructure forms, as well as the theoretical considerations behind both present and future applications.

The roadmap spans several thematic groups which are represented by the following authors: novel field effect transistors and bipolar devices by Fortunato, Grundmann, Boschker, Rao, and Rogers; energy conversion and saving by Zaban, Weidenkaff, and Murakami; new opportunities of photonics by Fompeyrine, and Zuniga-Perez; multiferroic materials including novel phenomena by Ramesh, Spaldin, Mertig, Lorenz, Srinivasan, and Prellier; and concepts for topological oxide electronics by Kawasaki, Pentcheva, and Gegenwart. Finally, Miletto Granozio presents the European action ‘towards oxide-based electronics’ which develops an oxide electronics roadmap with emphasis on future nonvolatile memories and the required technologies.

The roadmap aims to be an interesting, up-to-date snapshot of one of the most exciting areas of solid state physics, materials science, and chemistry, which even after many years of successful development continues to produce novel insights and achievements.