Competing misfit relaxation mechanisms in epitaxial correlated oxides

Abstract

Strain engineering of functional properties in epitaxial thin films of strongly correlated oxides exhibiting octahedral-framework structures is hindered by the lack of adequate misfit relaxation models. Here we present unreported experimental evidences of a four-stage hierarchical development of octahedral-framework perturbations resulting from a progressive imbalance between electronic, elastic and octahedral tilting energies in La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 epitaxial thin films grown on SrTiO3 substrates. Electronic softening of the Mn - O bonds near the substrate leads to the formation of an interfacial layer clamped to the substrate with strongly degraded magnetotransport properties, i.e. the so-called dead layer, while rigid octahedral tilts become relevant at advanced growth stages without significant effects on charge transport and magnetic ordering.

References in corpus (3)

• Evidence of orbital reconstruction at interfaces in La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 films
• Epitaxial TbMnO3 thin films on SrTiO3 substrates: A structural study
• Local tetragonal distortion in La_{0.7}Sr_{0.3}MnO_3 strained thin films probed by x-ray absorption spectroscopy

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Tuning Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy by Oxygen Octahedral Rotations in (La${}_{1-x}$Sr${}_x$MnO${}_3$)/(SrIrO${}_3$) Superlattices
• Termination control of magnetic coupling at a complex oxide interface