Structural and electronic properties of heterointerface composed of non-polar oxides: SrTiO<inf>3</inf> and ferroelectric BaTiO<inf>3</inf>

Abstract

© 2019, © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. We investigate the structural and electronic properties of heterostructure composed of two insulators: ferroelectric BaTiO3 and dielectric SrTiO3, by means of ab initio calculations. Both components of the heterostructure are non-polar in the simple ionic limit. We consider three types of BaTiO3 polarization: non-polar, dipoles towards the interface, and dipoles towards the surface. For the non-polar heterostructure, we obtain that system remains an insulator up to eight BaTiO3 overlayers. However, we show that polarization in the BTO slab induces conductivity. We analyze an impact of ferroelectric polarization onto conducting properties, as well as a possibility of switchable and controllable metal-insulator transition.