Enhanced metallic properties of SrRuO3 thin films via kinetically controlled pulsed laser epitaxy

Abstract

Metal electrodes are a universal element of all electronic devices. Conducting SrRuO3 (SRO) epitaxial thin films have been extensively used as electrodes in complex-oxide heterostructures due to good lattice mismatches with perovskite substrates. However, when compared to SRO single crystals, SRO thin films have shown reduced conductivity and Curie temperatures (T_C), which can lead to higher Joule heating and energy loss in the devices. Here, we report that high-quality SRO thin films can be synthesized by controlling the plume dynamics and growth rate of pulsed laser epitaxy (PLE) with real-time optical spectroscopic monitoring. The SRO thin films grown under the kinetically controlled conditions, down to ca. 16 nm in thickness, exhibit both enhanced conductivity and T_C as compared to bulk values, due to their improved stoichiometry and a strain-mediated increase of the bandwidth of Ru 4d electrons. This result provides a direction for enhancing the physical properties of PLE-grown thin films and paves a way for improved device applications.

arXiv comment8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

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• Generalized gradient approximation for solids and their surfaces
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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Bayesian optimization with experimental failure for high-throughput materials growth
• Tailoring the electronic properties of Ca${}_2$RuO${}_4$ via epitaxial strain
• Thickness-dependent quantum transport of Weyl fermions in ultra-high-quality SrRuO3 films
• Materials challenges for SrRuO3: from conventional to quantum electronics
• Structural and transport properties of highly Ru-deficient SrRu0.7O3 thin films prepared by molecular beam epitaxy: comparison with stoichiometric SrRuO3
• Correlated Quantum Phenomena of Spin-Orbit Coupled Perovskite Oxide Heterostructures: Cases of SrRuO3 and SrIrO3-Based Artificial Superlattices
• Enhanced magnetic and thermoelectric properties in epitaxial polycrystalline SrRuO3 thin film
• Magnetic ground state of SrRuO${}_3$ thin film and applicability of standard first-principles approximations to metallic magnetism
• Isotropic orbital magnetic moments in magnetically anisotropic SrRuO3 films
• Kinetic control of ferroelectricity in ultrathin epitaxial Barium Titanate capacitors