Modulation of carrier concentration in strongly correlated oxides offers the unique opportunity to induce different phases in the same material, which dramatically change their physical properties. Specially, the possibility to reversibly modify the metal-insulator transition (MIT) in perovskite oxides, by means of an electric field, as the external control parameter [1], is a very active area of research in condensed matter physics, and a promising technique to generate new solid-state devices with exciting functionalities.

In this contribution we will show the electric manipulation of the superconducting to insulator phase transition (SIT) in high temperature superconductor YBa₂Cu₃O_7-d films by field-induced oxygen doping [2]. Temperature-dependent transport and resistance measurements, together with micro-Raman experiments were performed to evaluate the local oxygen diffusion through the material in different electrode configurations. In particular, the implication of the intrinsic anisotropic oxygen diffusion in cuprates has been studied experimentally and corroborated with simulation. We demonstrate that non-volatile volume phase transitions can be locally modulated to generate transistor-like devices, with free-resistance channels, in which the electric field magnitude and direction, temperature, and anisotropic oxygen mobility determine their characteristics.

[1] J.C. Gonzalez-Rosillo et al. Small, Small, 2001307 (2020)
[2] A. Palau et al. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 10, 30522 (2018), X. D. A. Baumans et al Apl. Phys. Lett. 114, 012601 (2019), S. Marinkovic et al. ACS Nano, 14, 11765 (2020).

Keywords: oxygen difussion, SIT, correlated oxides