Surface acoustic waves studies on STO and KTO based heterostructures*

LAO/STO attracts interest due to its properties like gate tuneable 2DEG, ferroelectricity, ferroelasticity , superconductivity, etc. KTO, despite being structurally similar to STO, does not show a bulk ferroelastic transition.The superconducting Tc of KTO is dependent on its crystal orientation with Tc ~ 2K along [111] and 50mK along [001].  We use surface acoustic waves (SAW) to probe possible structural phase transitions in these heterostructures. SAW are generated using interdigitated transducers and are sensitive to surface phonon modes. We also discuss the possibility of integrating SAWs with nanostructures to coherently shuttle electrons or electron pairs.