Structural analysis of strained LaVO${}_3$ thin films

Abstract

While structure refinement is routinely achieved for simple bulk materials, the accurate structural determination still poses challenges for thin films due on the one hand to the small amount of material deposited on the thicker substrate and, on the other hand, to the intricate epitaxial relationships that substantially complicate standard X-ray diffraction analysis. Using a combined approach, we analyze the crystal structure of epitaxial LaVO${}_3$ thin films grown on (100)-oriented SrTiO${}_3$. Transmission electron microscopy study reveals that the thin films are epitaxially grown on SrTiO${}_3$ and points to the presence of 90${}^{\circ }$ oriented domains. The mapping of the reciprocal space obtained by high resolution X-ray diffraction permits refinement of the lattice parameters. We finally deduce that strain accommodation imposes a monoclinic structure onto the LaVO${}_3$ film. The reciprocal space maps are numerically processed and the extracted data computed to refine the atomic positions, which are compared to those obtained using precession electron diffraction tomography. We discuss the obtained results and our methodological approach as a promising thin film structure determination for complex systems.

8 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables

References in corpus (8)

• Structure and properties of functional oxide thin films: Insights from electronic-structure calculations
• Misfit Strain Accommodation in Epitaxial ABO3 Perovskites: Lattice Rotations and Lattice Modulations
• Quantifying octahedral rotations in strained perovskite oxide films
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• Structure determination of a brownmillerite Ca2Co2O5 thin film by Precession Electron Diffraction
• Effect of charge modulation in (LaVO3)m(SrVO3)n superlattices on the insulator-metal transition
• Electronic structure of the Mott insulator LaVO3 in a quantum well geometry
• Microstructure and interface studies of LaVO3/SrVO3 superlattices

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Structural and electronic properties of epitaxially-strained LaVO_3 from density functional theory and dynamical mean-field theory
• Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering study of doping and temperature dependence of low-energy excitations in La${}_{1-x}$Sr${}_x$VO${}_3$
• Growth and Characterization of Off-Stoichiometric LaVO${}_3$ Thin Films