Configurable Crack Wall Conduction in a Complex Oxide

Mobile defects in solid-state materials play a significant role in memristive switching and energy-efficient neuromorphic computation. Techniques for confining and manipulating point defects may have great promise for low-dimensional memories. Here, we report the spontaneous gathering of oxygen vacancies at strain-relaxed crack walls in SrTiO₃ thin films grown on DyScO₃ substrates as a result of flexoelectricity. We found that electronic conductance at the crack walls was enhanced compared to the crack-free region, by a factor of 10⁴. A switchable asymmetric diode-like feature was also observed, and the mechanism is discussed, based on the electrical migration of oxygen vacancy donors in the background of Sr-deficient acceptors forming n⁺–n or n–n⁺ junctions. By tracing the temporal relaxations of surface potential and lattice expansion of a formed region, we determine the diffusivity of mobile defects in crack walls to be 1.4 × 10^–16 cm²/s, which is consistent with oxygen vacancy kinetics.