Precise control of lattice mismatch accommodation and cation interdiffusion across the interface is critical to modulate correlated functionalities in epitaxial heterostructures, particularly when the interface composition is positioned near a compositional phase transition boundary. Here we select La1-xSrxMnO3 (LSMO) as a prototypical phase transition material and establish vertical epitaxial interfaces with NiO to explore the strong interplay between strain accommodation, stoichiometry modification, and localized electron transport across the interface. It is found that localized stoichiometry modification overcomes the plaguing dead layer problem in LSMO and leads to strongly directional conductivity, as manifested by more than three orders of magnitude difference between out-of-plane to in-plane conductivity. Comprehensive structural characterization and transport measurements reveal that this emerging behavior is related to a compositional change produced by directional cation diffusion that pushes the LSMO phase transition from insulating into metallic within an ultrathin interface region. This study explores the nature of unusual electric conductivity at vertical epitaxial interfaces and establishes an effective route for engineering nanoscale electron transport for oxide electronics.
Cryogenic scanning tunneling microscopy is employed to investigate the stoichiometry and defects of epitaxial FeSe thin films on SrTiO3(001) substrates under various post-growth annealing conditions. Low-temperature annealing with an excess supply of Se leads to formation of Fe vacancies and superstructures, accompanied by a superconductivity (metal)-to-insulator transition in FeSe films. By contrast, high-temperature annealing could eliminate the Fe vacancies and superstructures, and thus recover the high-temperature superconducting phase of monolayer FeSe films. We also observe multilayer Fe…
The electronic, magnetic, thermoelectric, and topological properties of Heusler compounds (composition $XYZ$ or $X_2 YZ$) are highly sensitive to stoichiometry and defects. Here we establish the existence and experimentally map the bounds of a \textit{semi} adsorption-controlled growth window for semiconducting half Heusler FeVSb films, grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). We show that due to the high volatility of Sb, the Sb stoichiometry is self-limiting for a finite range of growth temperatures and Sb fluxes, similar to the growth of III-V semiconductors such as GaSb and GaAs. Films grown…
Stoichiometric Epitaxial Strontium Titanate Thin Films on Silicon by High-Temperature Sr Segregation
Imec；Department of Materials Engineering (MTM), KU Leuven（荷语鲁汶大学材料工程系）；Physics Department, Jean Monnet University（圣艾蒂安让·穆内大学物理系）；Department of Information Technology (INTEC), Photonics Research Group, Ghent University（根特大学信息与科技学院光子学研究组）
Local Structure of Epitaxial Single Crystal UO$_{2+x}$ Thin Films
School of Physics, University of Bristol（布里斯托大学物理学院）；Department of Materials, University of Oxford（牛津大学材料系）；Department of Complex Matter, Josef Stefan Institute（约瑟夫·斯特凡研究所复杂物质系）；School of Chemistry, University of Bristol（布里斯托大学化学学院）；Department of Chemistry, Washington State University（华盛顿州立大学化学系）
Zero field cooled spontaneous exchange bias (SEB) is observed in epitaxial La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO):NiO self-assembled nanocomposite thin films grown on (001) SrTiO3 single crystal substrate by pulsed laser deposition. SEB is displayed by the novel asymmetry in the hysteresis loop of the composite film along with the field cooled conventional exchange bias (CEB) effect. The training effect shows that exchange bias relaxation is disorder mediated. It is revealed from DC magnetization results that such nanocomposite film divulges spin glass like behaviour, which is arising due to competing ferromag…
Tuning metal-insulator transitions in epitaxial V$_2$O$_3$ thin films
采用直流反应磁控溅射法在$c$平面Al $_2$ O $_3$衬底上外延生长V $_2$ O $_3$薄膜。结果揭示了一个温度窗口，在大大低于以前报道的值，其中外延膜时，可以得到沉积在[0001]取向的表面。该薄膜显示金属-绝缘体的转变与高达四个数量级的电阻的变化，强烈依赖于在沉积过程中的O $_2$分压。虽然薄膜的电子性质显示出对薄膜沉积过程中存在的O $_2$的量的敏感性，但它们的晶体结构和原子级平坦的台阶结构的表面形态具有高达微米的尺寸被保持。的转变温度，以及金属-绝缘体转变的规模，相关的化学计量和局部应变的薄膜中的沉积参数可控。
Autonomous epitaxial atomic-layer synthesis via real-time computer vision of electron diffraction
University of Maryland, College Park（马里兰大学帕克分校）；Maryland Quantum Materials Center, Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park（马里兰大学帕克分校物理系马里兰量子材料中心）；Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Tokyo（东京大学固体物理研究所）；U.S. Naval Research Laboratory（美国海军研究实验室）；National Institute of Standards and Technology（美国国家标准与技术研究院）
Unusual strain relaxation and Dirac semimetallic behavior in epitaxial antiperovskite nitrides
Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Northwest University（西北大学）；Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学）
Metal-to-insulator phase transitions in complex oxide thin films are exciting phenomena which may be useful for device applications, but in many cases the physical mechanism responsible for the transition is not fully understood. Here we demonstrate that epitaxial strain generates local disproportionation of the NiO6 octahedra, driven through changes in the oxygen stoichiometry, and that this directly modifies the metal-to-insulator phase transition in epitaxial (001) NdNiO3 thin films. Theoretically, we predict that the Ni-O-Ni bond angle decreases, while octahedral tilt and local disproporti…
Among the class of strongly-correlated oxides, La1-xSrxMnO3 $-$ a half metallic ferromagnet with a Curie temperature above room temperature $-$ has sparked a huge interest as a functional building block for memory storage and spintronic applications. In this respect, defect engineering has been in the focus of a long-standing quest for fabricating LSMO thin films with highest quality in terms of both structural and magnetic properties. Here, we discuss the correlation between structural defects, such as oxygen vacancies and impurity islands, and magnetism in La0.74Sr0.26MnO3/SrTiO3 (LSMO/STO) …
We report molecular beam epitaxy growth of Sr-doped Bi$_2$Se$_3$ films on (111) BaF$_2$ substrate, aimed to realize unusual superconducting properties inherent to Sr$_x$Bi$_2$Se$_3$ single crystals. Despite wide range of the compositions, we do not achieve superconductivity. To explore the reason for that we study structural, morphological and electronic properties of the films and compare them to the corresponding properties of the single crystals. The dependence of the c-lattice constant in the films on Sr content appears to be more than an order of magnitude stronger than in the crystals. C…
Revealing epitaxial relationships at Ga$_2$O$_3$ interfaces with p-type oxides
Materials Science Center, National Laboratory of the Rockies（洛基山国家实验室材料科学中心）；Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines（科罗拉多矿业学院冶金与材料工程系）；Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, University of Colorado Boulder（科罗拉多大学博尔德分校可再生与可持续能源研究所）
Ternary chalcogenides such as the parkerites and shandites are a broad class of materials exhibiting rich diversity of transport and magnetic behavior as well as an array of topological phases including Weyl and Dirac nodes. However, they remain largely unexplored as high-quality epitaxial thin films. Here, we report the self-regulated growth of thin films of the strong spin-orbit coupled superconductor Pd3Bi2Se2 on SrTiO3 by molecular beam epitaxy. Films are found to grow in a self-regulated fashion, where, in excess Se, the temperature and relative flux ratio of Pd to Bi controls the formati…
The celebrated Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase transition refers to a topological transition characterized, e.g., by the dissociation of vortex-antivortex pairs in two-dimensional (2D) systems. Such unusual phase has been reported in various types of materials, but never in the new class of systems made by one-unit-cell-thick (1UC) ferroelectrics (also coined as 2D ferroelectrics). Here, the use of a first-principles-based effective Hamiltonian method leads to the discovery of many fingerprints of a BKT phase existing in-between the ferroelectric and paraelectric states of 1UC tin …
Two-dimensional electron-gas-like charge transport at magnetic Heusler alloy-SrTiO$_3$ interface
我们报道了在（001）SrTiO $_3$上生长的Co $_2$ MnSi和Co $_2$ FeSi外延膜中显著低的剩余电阻率、巨大的剩余电阻率比、类自由电子霍尔电阻率和高迁移率（$\approx$ 10 $^4$ cm $^2$ V $^{-1}$ s $^{-1}$）电荷输运。这种不寻常的行为是没有观察到的薄膜沉积在其他立方氧化物基板的晶格参数相当。缩放的电阻率与膜的厚度允许提取的界面电导，这可以归因于一层氧空位限制在1.9 nm的界面内，如原子分辨电子显微镜和光谱所揭示的。在完全自旋极化金属的界面处观察到的高迁移率输运对于自旋电子学应用具有潜在的重要性。
