Education
Ph.D., Physics, University of Pittsburgh, 2011
Guanglei Cheng
University of Pittsburgh
Physics
Profile
Guanglei Cheng received his B.S.in Physics from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and his Ph.D. also in Physics from the University of Pittsburgh. He stayed at Pitt for several years first as a postdoc then as a Research Assistant Professor. He will be joining the faculty of USTC as of the fall of 2016, while retaining an adjunct professorship in the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Pittsburgh.
Research
Owing to the recent development of material growth methods including the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), atomically sharp interfaces between materials become available. At these interfaces, the electron-electron interaction is greatly enhanced, leading to novel phases including metal-insulator transition, superconductivity, magnetism and spin-orbit interaction.
A notable example is the (001) LaAlO3/SrTiO3 (LAO/STO) interface, where a polar discontinuity drives electronic interface reconstruction and leads to a 2D electron liquid (2DEL) at the interface. The interface conductivity is critically dependent on the LAO thickness. Below a critical thickness 4 unit cell the interface is insulating, otherwise the interface is conducting.
Since the discovery of the 2DEL in 2004[1], intense interests have been casted on this area. Up to now, the knowledge on this interface is growing rapidly, and so do the debates. The 2DEL is gate tunable, with a critical LAO thickness dependence[2]. The interface is superconducting, an inherent property of STO[3, 4]. More interestingly, it has a similar superconducting phase diagram as the high-Tc superconductor. Although both LAO and STO are non-magnetic, the interface is magnetic[5, 6]. More interestingly, magnetism and superconductivity can co-exist[7-9]. Owing to the inversion symmetric breaking, the interface has strong tunable spin-orbit interaction[10, 11]. Provided all these interesting phases, we invented the conductive-AFM lithography method that allows us to fabricate nanostructures on demand, effectively programming all these properties into nanoscale. Indeed, it is fun to watch all these properties interplay at nanoscale.
A. Ohtomo, and H. Y. Hwang, Nature 427, 423 (2004).
S. Thiel et al., Science 313, 1942 (2006).
N. Reyren et al., Science 317, 1196 (2007).
A. D. Caviglia et al., Nature 456, 624 (2008).
A. Brinkman et al., Nat Mater 6, 493 (2007).
Ariando et al., Nature communications 2, 188 (2011).
J. A. Bert et al., Nat Phys 7, 767 (2011).
D. A. Dikin et al., Physical Review Letters 107 (2011).
L. Li et al., Nat Phys advance on (2011).
A. D. Caviglia et al., Physical Review Letters 104, 126803 (2010).
M. Ben Shalom et al., Physical Review Letters 104, 126802 (2010).
Most Cited Publications
"Sketched oxide single-electron transistor," Cheng, G., Siles, P.F., Bi, F., Cen, C., Bogorin, D.F., Bark, C.W, Folkman, C.M., et al, Nature Nanotechnology 6, no. 6 (2011)
"Electron pairing without superconductivity," Cheng, G., Tomczyk, M., Lu, S., Veazey, J.P., Huang, M., Irvin, P., Ryu, S., et al, Nature 521, no. 7551 (2015)
"Anomalous high mobility in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 nanowires," Irvin, P., Veazy, J.P., Cheng, G., Lu, S., Bark, C.W., Ryu, S., Eom, C.B., Levy, J., Nano Letters 13, no. 2 (2013)
"Anomalous transport in sketched nanostructures at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface," Cheng, G., Veazy, J.P., Irvin, P., Cen, C., Bogorin, D.F., Bi, F., Huang, M., et al, Physical Review X 3, no. 1 (2013)
"Tunable electron-electron interactions in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 nanostructures," Cheng, G., Tomczyk, M., Tacla, A.B., Lee, H., Lu, S., Veazey, J.P., Huang, M., Irvin, P., Ryu, S., Eom, C.-B., Daley, A., Pekker, D., Levy, J. (2016) Physical Review X, 6 (4), art. no. 041042.
Recent Publications
"Towards Oxide Electronics: a Roadmap," Coll M., Fontcuberta J., Althammer M., Bibes M., Boschker H., Calleja A., Cheng G., Cuoco M., Dittmann R., Dkhil B., El Baggari I., Fanciulli M., Fina I., Fortunato E., Frontera C., Fujita S., Garcia V., Goennenwein S.T.B., Granqvist C.-G., Grollier J., Gross R., Hagfeldt A., Herranz G., Hono K., Houwman E., Huijben M., Kalaboukhov A., Keeble D.J., Koster G., Kourkoutis L.F., Levy J., Lira-Cantu M., MacManus-Driscoll J.L., Mannhart J., Martins R., Menzel S., Mikolajick T., Napari M., Nguyen M.D., Niklasson G., Paillard C., Panigrahi S., Rijnders G., Sánchez F., Sanchis P., Sanna S., Schlom D.G., Schroeder U., Shen K.M., Siemon A., Spreitzer M., Sukegawa H., Tamayo R., van den Brink J., Pryds N., Granozio F.M. Applied Surface Science Vol. 482, 1-93 (2019).
"Quantized Ballistic Transport of Electrons and Electron Pairs in LaAlO3/SrTiO3Nanowires." Anil Annadi, Guanglei Cheng, Hyungwoo Lee, Jung-Woo Lee, Shicheng Lu, Anthony Tylan-Tyler, Megan Briggeman, Michelle Tomczyk, Mengchen Huang, David Pekker, Chang-Beom Eom, Patrick Irvin, and Jeremy Levy. Nano Letters 18 (7), 4473-4481 (2018).
"Graphene-Complex-Oxide Nanoscale Device Concepts." Giriraj Jnawali, Hyungwoo Lee, Jung-Woo Lee, Mengchen Huang, Jen-Feng Hsu, Feng Bi, Rongpu Zhou, Guanglei Cheng, Brian D’Urso, Patrick Irvin, Chang-Beom Eom, and Jeremy Levy. ACS Nano 2018 12 (6), 6128-6136
"One-Dimensional Nature of Superconductivity at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 Interface." Yun-Yi Pai, Hyungwoo Lee, Jung-Woo Lee, Anil Annadi, Guanglei Cheng, Shicheng Lu, Michelle Tomczyk, Mengchen Huang, Chang-Beom Eom, Patrick Irvin, and Jeremy Levy. Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 147001 (2018)
"Shubnikov–de Haas–like Quantum Oscillations in Artificial One-Dimensional
LaAlO3/SrTiO3 Electron Channels." Guanglei Cheng, Anil Annadi, Shicheng Lu, Hyungwoo Lee, Jung-Woo Lee, Mengchen Huang, Chang-Beom Eom, Patrick Irvin, and Jeremy Levy. Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 076801 (2018)