Computational Research on SrTaO3 Heterostructures Published in JPCM

We have a new computational paper out in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter to celebrate the start of the year, led by Sharad Mahatara and Boris Kiefer. This work looks at the prospect of interfacial charge transfer from SrTaO3 to wide bandgap stannate films, including SrSnO3 and BaSnO3. SrTaO3 is a powerful electronic donor across interfaces due to the large energy gap between the oxygen valence electrons and the single electron on the Ta4+ ion near the Fermi level. Electrons from SrTaO3 want to flood downhill in energy into the stannate materials, something we showed experimentally last year for SrNbO3/BaSnO3 heterostructures. This also makes it very hard to grow with the proper oxygen stoichiometry (more on that from our group at Auburn in the future!), but if heterostructures can be synthesized it will be very promising for interfacial doping of semiconductors as well as emergent properties in topological materials. Our contributions to the work were supported by our Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) funding. Congrats to Sharad and Boris for this very nice work!

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