Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale (HFNL), CAS Key Laboratory of Strongly Coupled Quantum Matter Physics, and Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei 230026, China.
International Center for Quantum Design of Functional Materials, HFNL, and Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei 230026, China.
Nano Lett. 2017 Mar 8;17(3):1461-1466. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b04444. Epub 2017 Feb 27.
One-dimensional (1D) confinement has been revealed to effectively tune the properties of materials in homogeneous states. The 1D physics can be further enriched by electronic inhomogeneity, which unfortunately remains largely unknown. Here we demonstrate the ultrahigh sensitivity to magnetic fluctuations and the tunability of phase stability in the electronic transport properties of self-assembled electronically phase-separated manganite nanowires with extreme aspect ratio. The onset of magnetic nanodroplet state, a precursor to the ferromagnetic metallic state, is unambiguously revealed, which is attributed to the small lateral size of the nanowires that is comparable to the droplet size. Moreover, the quasi-1D anisotropy stabilizes thin insulating domains to form intrinsic tunneling junctions in the low temperature range, which is robust even under magnetic field up to 14 T and thus essentially modifies the classic 1D percolation picture to stabilize a novel quantum percolation state. A new phase diagram is therefore established for the manganite system under quasi-1D confinement for the first time. Our findings offer new insight into understanding and manipulating the colorful properties of the electronically phase-separated systems via dimensionality engineering.
一维（1D）限制已被证明可有效调节均匀状态下材料的性能。通过电子非均匀性，可以进一步丰富 1D 物理，但不幸的是，这在很大程度上仍然未知。在这里，我们展示了自组装电子相分离锰氧化物纳米线在超高灵敏度磁涨落和电子输运性质的相稳定性可调性方面的卓越性能。纳米线的横向尺寸与液滴尺寸相当，因此明确揭示了磁纳米液滴状态（铁磁金属状态的前体）的出现。此外，准 1D 各向异性在低温范围内稳定了薄绝缘畴，形成了固有隧道结，即使在高达 14 T 的磁场下也具有很强的稳定性，从而从根本上改变了经典的 1D 渗流图，稳定了一种新型量子渗流状态。因此，首次为锰氧化物体系在准 1D 限制下建立了新的相图。我们的发现为通过维度工程理解和控制电子相分离系统丰富多彩的特性提供了新的见解。
