Strain Tuning in Complex Oxide Epitaxial Films Using an Ultrathin Strontium Aluminate Buffer Layer

Lu, Di; Hikita, Yasuyuki; Baek, David J.; Merz, Tyler A.; Sato, Hiroki; Kim, Bongju; Yajima, Takeaki; Bell, Christopher; Vailionis, Arturas; Kourkoutis, Lena F.; Hwang, Harold Y.

doi:10.1002/pssr.201700339

Title: Strain Tuning in Complex Oxide Epitaxial Films Using an Ultrathin Strontium Aluminate Buffer Layer

Journal Article · Fri Jan 05 00:00:00 EST 2018 · Physica Status Solidi rrl

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/pssr.201700339· OSTI ID:1457702

^[1]; Hikita, Yasuyuki ^[2]; Baek, David J. ^[3]; Merz, Tyler A. ^[4]; Sato, Hiroki ^[5]; Kim, Bongju ^[4]; Yajima, Takeaki ^[6]; Bell, Christopher ^[7]; Vailionis, Arturas ^[8]; Kourkoutis, Lena F. ^[9]; Hwang, Harold Y. ^[10]

Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Physics
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science (SIMES)
Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States). School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Applied Physics
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science (SIMES); Univ. of Tokyo (Japan). Dept. of Advanced Materials Science
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science (SIMES); Univ. of Tokyo (Japan). Dept. of Materials Engineering
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science (SIMES); Bristol Univ. (United Kingdom). H.H. Wills Physics Lab.
Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Stanford Nano Shared Facilities
Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States). School of Applied and Engineering Physics and Kavli Inst. at Cornell for Nanoscale Science
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science (SIMES); Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Applied Physics

A reliable method to apply biaxial strain over a wide range of values with minimal dislocation generation is critical for the study of strain dependent physical properties in oxide thin films and heterostructures. In this study, we systematically controlled the strain state in a perovskite manganite thin film by as much as 1% using a new ultrathin strain-releasing buffer layer Sr₃Al₂O₆, and observed signatures of accompanying magnetic and metal–insulator transitions. The near-zero strain state is achieved within five nanometers of buffer layer thickness, substantially thinner than any oxide epitaxial buffer layers that can continuously tune the film strain states. Furthermore, the majority of misfit dislocations were confined to the Sr₃Al₂O₆ layer, structurally decoupling defects in the film from the substrate.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Cite

Export

Save

Research Organization:: SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; National Science Foundation (NSF)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-76SF00515; DGE-114747; DMR-1120296; GBMF4415

OSTI ID:: 1457702

Journal Information:: Physica Status Solidi rrl, Vol. 12, Issue 3; ISSN 1862-6254

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 7 works

Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (29)

Room-temperature ferroelectricity in strained SrTiO₃ Haeni, J. H.; Irvin, P.; Chang, W. Nature, Vol. 430, Issue 7001, p. 758-761 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02773	journal	August 2004
Impact of misfit dislocations on the polarization instability of epitaxial nanostructured ferroelectric perovskites Chu, Ming-Wen; Szafraniak, Izabela; Scholz, Roland Nature Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1057	journal	January 2004
Domain epitaxy: A unified paradigm for thin film growth Narayan, J.; Larson, B. C. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 93, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1528301	journal	January 2003
Little volume change in orbital ordering transition in manganite thin films Wakabayashi, Yusuke; Sawa, Hiroshi; Takubo, Naoko Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Vol. 211 https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/211/1/012004	journal	February 2010
Strain-dependent magnetic phase diagram of epitaxial La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 thin films Tsui, F.; Smoak, M. C.; Nath, T. K. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 76, Issue 17 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.126363	journal	April 2000
Hysteretic Magnetoresistance in $\bf Nd_{1-{\ninmbi x}}Sr_{\ninmbi x}MnO_{3}$ Films with Controlled Carrier Density Kasai, Masahiro; Kuwahara, Hideki; Moritomo, Yutaka Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 35, Issue Part 2, No. 4B https://doi.org/10.1143/JJAP.35.L489	journal	April 1996
Doubling the critical temperature of La1.9Sr0.1CuO4 using epitaxial strain Locquet, J. -P.; Perret, J.; Fompeyrine, J. Nature, Vol. 394, Issue 6692 https://doi.org/10.1038/28810	journal	July 1998
Synthesis of freestanding single-crystal perovskite films and heterostructures by etching of sacrificial water-soluble layers Lu, Di; Baek, David J.; Hong, Seung Sae Nature Materials, Vol. 15, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4749	journal	September 2016
Energetics of misfit- and threading-dislocation arrays in heteroepitaxial films Rockett, A.; Kiely, C. J. Physical Review B, Vol. 44, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.44.1154	journal	July 1991
Voltage-controlled epitaxial strain in La0.7Sr0.3MnO3∕Pb(Mg1∕3Nb2∕3)O3-PbTiO3(001) films Thiele, C.; Dörr, K.; Fähler, S. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 87, Issue 26 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2150273	journal	December 2005
A critical thickness condition for a strained compliant substrate/epitaxial film system Freund, L. B.; Nix, W. D. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 69, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.117362	journal	July 1996
Metal-insulator transitions Imada, Masatoshi; Fujimori, Atsushi; Tokura, Yoshinori Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 70, Issue 4, p. 1039-1263 https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.70.1039	journal	October 1998
Effect of substrate-induced strain on the charge-ordering transition in Nd0.5Sr0.5MnO3 thin films Prellier, W.; Biswas, Amlan; Rajeswari, M. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 75, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.124387	journal	July 1999
Stress relaxation and misfit dislocation nucleation in the growth of misfitting films: A molecular dynamics simulation study Dong, Liang; Schnitker, Jurgen; Smith, Richard W. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 83, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.366676	journal	January 1998
Influence of water on the physical properties of calcium aluminate oxide glasses Hwa, Luu-Gen; Lee, Gay-Wen Materials Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 58, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0254-0584(98)00271-5	journal	March 1999
Epitaxial-strain-induced insulator-superconductor transition in undoped and lightly doped La2CuO4 Si, Weidong; Xi, X. X. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 78, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1338966	journal	January 2001
Hole-concentration-induced transformation of the magnetic and orbital structures in ${Nd}_{1 - x} {Sr}_{x} {MnO}_{3}$ Kajimoto, R.; Yoshizawa, H.; Kawano, H. Physical Review B, Vol. 60, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.60.9506	journal	October 1999
Strain-induced crossover of the metal-insulator transition in perovskite manganites Ogimoto, Y.; Nakamura, M.; Takubo, N. Physical Review B, Vol. 71, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.71.060403	journal	February 2005
Commensurate to Incommensurate Charge Ordering and Its Real-Space Images in L $a_{0.5}$ C $a_{0.5}$ Mn $O_{3}$ Chen, C. H.; Cheong, S-W. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 76, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.4042	journal	May 1996
Elasticity of CaTiO3, SrTiO3 and BaTiO3 perovskites up to 3.0 Gpa: the effect of crystallographic structure Fischer, GeorgeJ.; Wang, Zichao; Karato, Shun-ichiro Physics and Chemistry of Minerals, Vol. 20, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00207202	journal	July 1993
The effect of dislocation contrast on x‐ray line broadening: A new approach to line profile analysis Ungár, T.; Borbély, A. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 69, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.117951	journal	November 1996
Phase control through anisotropic strain in Nd0.5Sr0.5MnO3 thin films Nakamura, Masao; Ogimoto, Yasushi; Tamaru, Hiroharu Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 86, Issue 18 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1923754	journal	May 2005
Tristrontium dialuminum hexaoxide: an intricate superstructure of perovskite Alonso, J. A.; Rasines, I.; Soubeyroux, J. L. Inorganic Chemistry, Vol. 29, Issue 23 https://doi.org/10.1021/ic00348a035	journal	November 1990
Study of strain fields at a-Si/c-Si interface Yu, Zhiheng; Muller, David A.; Silcox, John Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 95, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1649463	journal	April 2004
A First-Order Phase Transition Induced by a Magnetic Field Kuwahara, H.; Tomioka, Y.; Asamitsu, A. Science, Vol. 270, Issue 5238 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.270.5238.961	journal	November 1995
Novel Orbital Ordering Induced by Anisotropic Stress in a Manganite Thin Film Wakabayashi, Y.; Bizen, D.; Nakao, H. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 96, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.017202	journal	January 2006
Strain Tuning of Ferroelectric Thin Films Schlom, Darrell G.; Chen, Long-Qing; Eom, Chang-Beom Annual Review of Materials Research, Vol. 37, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.matsci.37.061206.113016	journal	August 2007
Dislocations and strain relief in compositionally graded layers Tersoff, J. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 62, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.108842	journal	February 1993
Metal-insulator transitions Paesler, Michael Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, Vol. 130, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-3093(91)90162-y	journal	June 1991