Lattice, charge, orbital, and spin are the four fundamental degrees of freedom in condensed matter, of which the interactive coupling derives tremendous novel physical phenomena, such as high-temperature superconductivity (high-T_c SC) and colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) in strongly correlated electronic system. Direct experimental observation of these freedoms is essential to understanding the structure-property relationship and the physics behind it, and also indispensable for designing new materials and devices. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) integrating multiple techniques of structure imaging and spectrum analysis, is a comprehensive platform for providing structural, chemical and electronic information of materials with a high spatial resolution. Benefiting from the development of aberration correctors, STEM has taken a big breakthrough towards sub-angstrom resolution in last decade and always steps forward to improve the capability of material characterization; many improvements have been achieved in recent years, thereby giving an in-depth insight into material research. Here, we present a brief review of the recent advances of STEM by some representative examples of perovskite transition metal oxides; atomic-scale mapping of ferroelectric polarization, octahedral distortions and rotations, valence state, coordination and spin ordering are presented. We expect that this brief introduction about the current capability of STEM could facilitate the understanding of the relationship between functional properties and these fundamental degrees of freedom in complex oxides.

Recent studies of the modulation of physical properties in oxide thin films by multiple fields are reviewed. Some of the key issues and prospects of this area of study are also addressed. Oxide thin films exhibit versatile physical properties such as magnetism, ferroelectricity, piezoelectricity, metal-insulator transition (MIT), multiferroicity, colossal magnetoresistivity, switchable resistivity. More importantly, the exhibited multifunctionality can be tuned by various external fields, which has enabled demonstration of novel electronic devices.

Recent progress in the electrical control of magnetism in oxides, with profound physics and enormous potential applications, is reviewed and illustrated. In the first part, we provide a comprehensive summary of the electrical control of magnetism in the classic multiferroic heterostructures and clarify the various mechanisms lying behind them. The second part focuses on the novel technique of electric double layer gating for driving a significant electronic phase transition in magnetic oxides by a small voltage. In the third part, electric field applied on ordinary dielectric oxide is used to control the magnetic phenomenon originating from charge transfer and orbital reconstruction at the interface between dissimilar correlated oxides. At the end, we analyze the challenges in electrical control of magnetism in oxides, both the mechanisms and practical applications, which will inspire more in-depth research and advance the development in this field.

Due to the upcoming demands of next-generation electronic/magnetoelectronic devices with low-energy consumption, emerging correlated materials (such as superconductors, topological insulators and manganites) are one of the highly promising candidates for the applications. For the past decades, manganites have attracted great interest due to the colossal magnetoresistance effect, charge-spin-orbital ordering, and electronic phase separation. However, the incapable of deterministic control of those emerging low-dimensional spin structures at ambient condition restrict their possible applications. Therefore, the understanding and control of the dynamic behaviors of spin order parameters at nanoscale in manganites under external stimuli with low energy consumption, especially at room temperature is highly desired. In this review, we collected recent major progresses of nanoscale control of spin structures in manganites at low dimension, especially focusing on the control of their phase boundaries, domain walls as well as the topological spin structures (e.g., skyrmions). In addition, capacitor-based prototype spintronic devices are proposed by taking advantage of the above control methods in manganites. This capacitor-based structure may provide a new platform for the design of future spintronic devices with low-energy consumption.