In Situ Oxide Order-Disorder Study Published in Nano Letters

Understanding order-disorder processes in oxide materials is of fundamental importance for devices, such as sensors and electronics used in high-radiation environments and spacecraft. Now, a PNNL-led team has examined these processes with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution, observing a unique percolation of disorder for the first time.

Writing in Nano Letters, the PNNL team of Bethany Matthews, Michel Sassi, Tiffany Kaspar, Weilin Jiang, and Steven Spurgeon, along with collaborators Christopher Barr and Khalid at Sandia National Laboratories and Colin Ophus at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, studied the evolution of perovskite oxide interfaces during in situ ion irradiation in the transmission electron microscope.

“Our study reveals how oxide interfaces behave in extremes with exceptional atomic-plane level resolution,” explains lead author Steven Spurgeon. “Using this information, we can better design and harness these materials for future device applications.”

From the abstract:

Mastery of order-disorder processes in highly non-equilibrium nanostructured oxides has significant implications for the development of emerging energy technologies. However, we are presently limited in our ability to quantify and harness these processes at high spatial, chemical, and temporal resolution, particularly in extreme environments. Here we describe the percolation of disorder at the model oxide interface LaMnO3 / SrTiO3, which we visualize during in situ ion irradiation in the transmission electron microscope. We observe the formation of a network of disorder during the initial stages of ion irradiation and track the global progression of the system to full disorder. We couple these measurements with detailed structural and chemical probes, examining possible underlying defect mechanisms responsible for this unique percolative behavior.

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