Atomic layer engineering of perovskite oxides for chemically sharp heterointerfaces

Abstract

Advances in synthesis techniques and materials understanding have given rise to oxide heterostructures with intriguing physical phenomena that cannot be found in their constituents. In these structures, precise control of interface quality, including oxygen stoichiometry, is critical for unambiguous tailoring of the interfacial properties, with deposition of the first monolayer being the most important step in shaping a well-defined functional interface. Here, we studied interface formation and strain evolution during the initial growth of LaAlO3 on SrTiO3 by pulsed laser deposition, in search of a means for controlling the atomic-sharpness of the interfaces. Our experimental results show that growth of LaAlO3 at a high oxygen pressure dramatically enhances interface abruptness. As a consequence, the critical thickness for strain relaxation was increased, facilitating coherent epitaxy of perovskite oxides. This provides a clear understanding of the role of oxygen pressure during the interface formation, and enables the synthesis of oxide heterostructures with chemically-sharper interfaces.

25 pages

References in corpus (15)

• Magnetic effects at the interface between nonmagnetic oxides
• Why Some Interfaces Cannot be Sharp
• The role of oxygen vacancies in SrTiO3 at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface
• High Mobility in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 Heterostructures: Origin, Dimensionality and Perspectives
• Origin of charge density at LaAlO3-on-SrTiO3 hetero-interfaces; possibility of intrinsic doping
• Avoiding the polarization catastrophe in LaAlO3 overlayers on SrTiO3(001) through a polar distortion
• Atomic-scale compensation phenomena at polar interfaces
• Suppressed dependence of polarization on epitaxial strain in highly polar ferroelectrics
• Surface defects and conduction in polar oxide heterostructures
• Electron transfer and ionic displacements at the origin of the 2D electron gas at the LAO/STO interface: Direct measurements with atomic-column spatial resolution
• Multiple conducting carriers generated in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures
• Berry-phase theory of polar discontinuities at oxide-oxide interfaces
• Pulsed laser deposition of SrTiO3/LaGaO3 and SrTiO3/LaAlO3: plasma plume effects
• Anomalous Expansion of the Copper-Apical Oxygen Distance in Superconducting La${}_2$CuO${}_4$ - La${}_{1.55}$Sr${}_{0.45}$CuO${}_4$ Bilayers
• Tuning the two-dimensional electron gas at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3(001) interface by metallic contacts

Cited by in corpus (15)

• Tunneling Electroresistance Induced by Interfacial Phase Transitions in Ultrathin Oxide Heterostructures
• Growth control of oxygen stoichiometry in homoepitaxial SrTiO3 films by pulsed laser epitaxy in high vacuum
• Surface properties of atomically flat poly-crystalline SrTiO3
• Growth control of the oxidation state in vanadium oxide thin films
• Phase transitions via selective elemental vacancy engineering in complex oxide thin films
• Resonant tunneling in a quantum oxide superlattice
• Self-formed $LaAl{O}_3/SrTi{O}_3$ Micro-Membranes
• Highly oriented SrTiO3 thin film on graphene substrate
• Symmetry-driven atomic rearrangement at a brownmillerite-perovskite interface
• Influence of oxygen pressure and aging on LaAlO3 films grown by pulsed laser deposition on SrTiO3 substrates
• Ex-situ atomic force microscopy on the growth mode of SrRuO3 epitaxial thin film
• Integration of High-Tc Superconductors with High Q Factor Oxide Mechanical Resonators
• Observation of charge-to-spin conversion with giant efficiency at Ni${}_{0.8}$Fe${}_{0.2}$/Bi${}_2$WO${}_6$ interface
• Constructing oxide interfaces and heterostructures by atomic layer-by-layer laser molecular beam epitaxy
• Electronic Correlation-driven Exotic Quantum Phase Transitions in Infinite-layer Manganese Oxide