  A bottom-up process has been used to engineer the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface
atomic composition and locally confine the two-dimensional electron gas to
lateral sizes in the order of 100 nm. This is achieved by using SrTiO3(001)
substrate surfaces with self-patterned chemical termination, which is
replicated by the LaAlO3 layer, resulting in a modulated LaO/TiO2 and AlO2/SrO
interface composition. We demonstrate the confinement of the conducting
interface forming either long-range ordered nanometric stripes or isolated
regions. Our results demonstrate that engineering the interface chemical
termination is a suitable strategy towards nanoscale lateral confinement of
two-dimensional high-mobility systems.
