Paper detail

Electrostatic gating of metallic and insulating phases in SmNiO3 ultrathin films

The correlated electron system SmNiO3 exhibits a metal-insulator phase transition at 130 °C. Using an ionic liquid as an electric double layer (EDL) gate on three-terminal ultrathin SmNiO3 devices, we investigate gate control of the channel resistance and transition temperature. Resistance reduction is observed across both insulating and metallic phases with ~25% modulation at room temperature. We show that resistance modulation is predominantly due to electrostatic charge accumulation and not electrochemical doping by control experiments in inert and air en-vironments. We model the resistance behavior and estimate the accumulated sheet density (~1-2 x 10^14 cm^-2) and EDL capacitance (~12 μF/cm^2).