Physics of ultrathin films and heterostructures of rare earth nickelates

Abstract

The electronic structure of transition metal oxides featuring correlated electrons can be rationalized within the Zaanen-Sawatzky-Allen framework. Following a brief description of the present paradigms of electronic behavior, we focus on the physics of rare earth nickelates as an archetype of complexity emerging within the charge transfer regime. The intriguing prospect of realizing the physics of high $T_c$ cuprates through heterostructuring resulted in a massive endeavor to epitaxially stabilize these materials in ultra-thin form. A plethora of new phenomena unfolded in such artificial structures due to the effect of epitaxial strain, quantum confinement, and interfacial charge transfer. Here we review the present status of artificial rare-earth nickelates in an effort to uncover the interconnection between the electronic and magnetic behavior and the underlying crystal structure. We conclude by discussing future directions to disentangle the puzzle regarding the origin of the metal-insulator transition, the role of oxygen holes, and the true nature of the antiferromagnetic spin configuration in the ultra-thin limit.

Invited review article (Annual Review of Materials Research)

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Cited by in corpus (23)

• Self-doped Mott insulator for parent compounds of nickelate superconductors
• Bond disproportionation and dynamical charge fluctuations in the perovskite rare earth nickelates
• Two-band model for magnetism and superconductivity in nickelates
• Materials design of dynamically stable $d^9$ layered nickelates
• Epitaxial stabilization of ultra thin films of high entropy perovskite
• Interplay between breathing mode distortion and magnetic order in rare-earth nickelates $R$NiO${}_3$ within DFT+$U$
• Reproducibility and off-stoichiometry issues in nickelate thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition
• Ramp Reversal Memory and Phase-Boundary Scarring in Transition Metal Oxides
• Scale-invariant magnetic textures in the strongly correlated oxide NdNiO${}_3$
• Anomalous electron transport in epitaxial NdNiO${}_3$ films
• Geometrical lattice engineering of complex oxide heterostructures: a designer approach to emergent quantum states
• Control of the metal-insulator transition in NdNiO${}_3$ thin films through the interplay between structural and electronic properties
• Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering study of bond order and spin excitations in nickelate thin-film structures
• Dynamic hysteresis at a noisy saddle-node shows power-law scaling but nonuniversal exponent
• Topotactically induced oxygen vacancy order in nickelate single crystals
• Electronic structure of buried LaNiO3 layers in (111)-oriented LaNiO3/LaMnO3 superlattices probed by soft x-ray ARPES
• PERSPECTIVE: Emergent phases in rare earth nickelate heterostructures
• Epitaxially strained ultrathin LaNiO${}_3$/LaAlO${}_3$ and LaNiO${}_3$/SrTiO${}_3$ superlattices: a density functional theory + $U$ study
• Electronic and magnetic properties of epitaxial thin film of Nd\tsubscript{0.5}Ba\tsuscriptb{0.5}MnO\tsubscript{3}
• Hard x-ray photoemission study on strain effect in LaNiO${}_3$ thin films
• Robust electronic and tunable magnetic states in Sm${}_2$NiMnO${}_6$ ferromagnetic insulator
• Non-uniform magnetization profile in ferromagnetic heterostructures leading to topological Hall effect like signatures
• Probing electronic and magnetic transitions of short periodic nickelate superlattices using synchrotron x-ray