Emergent phenomena at interfaces of KTaO3

With an ever intensifying hunt for quantum materials with integrated functionalities, transition metal oxides provide a simple yet rich option to explore. In this article, we bring out the potential of a perovskite oxide KTaO3 (KTO) as a candidate for future generation quantum technologies as well as a hunting ground to understand the topological effects in oxides. We show that the heterostructures of insulating KTO with other insulating oxides LaVO3 (LVO) and EuO are not only conducting, but have strong spin-orbit coupling leading to momentum-dependent spin-splitting—the Rashba effect. In LVO–KTO, the Rashba spin-split bands are shown to give rise to anisotropic magnetoresistance and planar Hall effect, while in EuO–KTO, a non-trivial Berry’s phase analysed from the quantum Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations is observed.