  Among the interfacial transport modulations to the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 (LAO/STO)
heterostructure, mechanical strain has been proven to be an effective approach
by growing the LAO/STO films on different substrates with varying lattice
mismatches to STO. However, this lattice-mismatch-induced strain effect is
static and biaxial, hindering the study of the strain effect in a dynamic way.
In this work we realize dynamic and uniaxial strain to the LAO/STO oxide
heterostructure at low temperature, through mechanical coupling from a
magnetostrictive template. This anisotropic strain results in symmetry breaking
at the interface and induces further splitting of the electronic band structure
and therefore produces different conductivities along the x and y in-plane
directions. In particular, we observe that along the strained direction the
interface conductivity decreases by up to 70% under a tensile strain, while it
increases by 6.8% under a compressive strain at 2 K. Also, it is revealed that
the modulation on the interfacial transport property can be anisotropic, i.e.,
the resistance changes differently when an excitation current is parallel or
perpendicular to the strain direction. This approach of strain engineering
provides another degree of freedom for control of transport properties of oxide
heterostructures and opens an additional way to investigate strain effects in
materials science.
