Thin Film Heterostructures and Devices

Christos is also the Principal Investigator of a Program supported by the National Research Foundation of Singapore to explore quantum heterostructures assembled from a palette of atoms comprising numerous types of rare-earth transition metals, plus oxygen, stacked layer upon layer.  This Program is in collaboration with two co-investigators in our Department, Assistant Professors Elbert Chia and Tao Wu.

In these heterostructures, the composition of the thin film jumps abruptly across interfaces.  Because the motion of each electron correlates strongly with the motion of all the other electrons, unexpected properties emerge at the interfaces such as superconductivity, metallicity, and magnetism, even though the materials comprising the heterostructures are, on their own, insulating and non-magnetic.

Notably, this surprising behavior cannot be explained by the classical theories of condensed matter physics and the ability to engineer and tune these quantum materials makes them both scientifically interesting and technologically important.

MBE-like Pulsed Laser Deposition System from Twente Solid State Technology with a HREED to monitor the layer-by-layer growth of oxide thin films