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In this paper, Carmine Autieri and Giuseppe Cuono, from MagTop, collaborated with researchers from the Electron Microscopy for Materials Research (EMAT), Department of Physics, University of Antwerp, Belgium, from CNR-SPIN, Salerno, Italy and from University of Salerno, Italy, in order to study the pattern formation by electric-field quench in a Mott crystal. The authors revealed a nanoscale pattern formation in the Ca2RuO4 Mott insulator. They demonstrate how an applied electric field spatially reconstructs the insulating phase that, uniquely after switching off the electric field, exhibits nanoscale stripe domains. They also theoretically simulate the charge and orbital reconstruction induced by a quench dynamics of the applied electric field providing clear-cut mechanisms for the stripe phase formation. The observed phenomena may have a high impact on innovative types of switching memories, once the stripes pattern has been written, and they can be erased and written at will just by applying a small amplitude voltage. These findings thus can pave the way for the construction of low-energy consumption nonvolatile nanoscale electronics and in perspective can be integrated with other functional devices employing photonic effects.
Nano Lett., 23, 17, 7782–7789 (2023)