Laser-induced structural modulation and superconductivity in SrTiO3

Under normal conditions, stoichiometric SrTiO3 is an excellent dielectric. It shows a structural phase transition, from cubic to tetragonal, below 105 K. In this structure, well separated domains hosting tetragonal phases with different long axes exist giving rise to the so-called X, Y, and Z domains. At very low temperatures, it becomes a quantum paraelectric in which local ferroelectric domains are found at the X, Y, and Z domain boundaries. Creation of oxygen vacancy in SrTiO3 makes it conducting with low carrier density which also undergoes an unconventional superconducting transition at sub-kelvin temperatures. We have created structural phase separation with clear domain boundaries (as in the X, Y, and Z domains) at room temperature on single crystals of SrTiO3 by irradiating the surface with high power density excimer laser pulses. We find that the domain boundaries are dominantly conducting, and the irradiated crystals undergo a superconducting phase transition below 180 mK indicating that the superconducting phase appears at the domain boundaries. This concurrence of local ferroelectricity and superconductivity in lightly doped SrTiO3 supports a ferroelectric fluctuation mediated Cooper pairing in the system. The results also point out the possibility of controlling ferroelectricity and superconductivity in functional electronic devices through surface engineering.