A team led by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities has come up with a first-of-its-kind method that makes it easier to make high-quality metal oxide thin films from “stubborn” metals, which have been hard to synthesize atomically. This research opens the door to better materials for quantum computing, microelectronics, sensors, energy catalysis, and other next-generation applications.
The specialists’ paper is distributed in Nature Nanotechnology.
According to Bharat Jalan, senior author of the paper and professor and Shell Chair in the University of Minnesota Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, “This is a truly remarkable discovery, as it unveils an unparalleled and simple way to navigate material synthesis at the atomic scale by harnessing the power of epitaxial strain.”
“This is a truly remarkable discovery, as it reveals an unprecedented and simple method for navigating material synthesis at the atomic scale by harnessing the power of epitaxial strain,”
Bharat Jalan, senior author on the paper and a professor
“This breakthrough is significant and has far-reaching repercussions across numerous fields. In addition to enabling atomically precise quantum material synthesis, it has enormous potential for controlling oxidation-reduction pathways in a variety of applications, such as catalysis and chemical reactions in fuel cells or batteries.”
Numerous applications in electronics and quantum information science rely heavily on “stupid” metal oxides like those based on ruthenium or iridium. Notwithstanding, changing them into slight movies has been quite difficult for analysts because of the intrinsic challenges in oxidizing metals utilizing high-vacuum processes.
The manufacture of these materials has bewildered materials researchers for quite some time. Although some researchers have been successful in achieving oxidation, the methods that have been used up to this point have been expensive, risky, or have resulted in lower-quality materials.
What is the answer from the University of Minnesota researchers? Give it some room.
While endeavoring to combine metal oxides utilizing ordinary sub-atomic bar epitaxy, a low-energy method that creates single layers of material in a super-high vacuum chamber, the specialists coincidentally found an earth-shattering disclosure. They found that integrating an idea called “epitaxial strain”—successfully extending the metals at the nuclear level — essentially improves the oxidation interaction of these obstinate metals.
Sreejith Nair, first author of the paper and Ph.D. candidate in chemical engineering at the University of Minnesota, stated, “This enables the creation of technologically important metal oxides out of stubborn metals in ultra-high vacuum atmospheres, which has been a longstanding problem.” The current approaches to synthesis have their limitations, and in order to produce materials of higher quality, we must devise novel strategies to further challenge those limitations. Our new technique for extending the material at the nuclear scale is one method for working on the exhibition of the ongoing innovation.”
Although the College of Minnesota group used iridium and ruthenium as models in this paper, their technique can possibly create molecularly exact oxides of any difficult-to-oxidize metal. The researchers hope to empower scientists all over the world to synthesize these novel materials with this ground-breaking discovery.
The scientists worked intimately with teammates at Coppery College, the College of Delaware, Brookhaven Public Research Facility, Argonne Public Lab, and individual College of Minnesota Division of Substance Designing and Materials Science Teacher Andre Mkhoyan’s lab to confirm their strategy.
“We captured the arrangements of the atoms and determined their types when we looked at these metal oxide films very closely using very powerful electron microscopes,” Mkhoyan explained. They were, indeed, nicely and periodically arranged in these crystalline films as they ought to be.”
More information: Sreejith Nair, Engineering metal oxidation using epitaxial strain, Nature Nanotechnology (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41565-023-01397-0. www.nature.com/articles/s41565-023-01397-0
