Jordan Huang Rose Hills
Scanning Tunneling Microscopy on Multiferroic Thin Film Oxides
The recent interest in the properties of multiferroic materials is due to its proposed application in a variety of technologies such as sensors and data storage devices as well as its application in the miniaturization of technological devices. The scanning tunneling microscope (STM), with its capabilities to study materials on the atomic level, is a very useful tool that can be used to understand the nature of multiferroic materials. The majority of multiferroic materials, however, are oxides and STM study on multiferroic oxides is largely unexplored. This is due to the difficulty that most multiferroic oxides are insulators, and STM measurements typically require the sample to be conducting. As a result, this summer I will be exploring how well the STM can be used to study multiferroic thin film oxides.