Interfacial Octahedral Manipulation Imparts Hysteresis-Free Metal to Insulator Transition in Ultrathin Nickelate Heterostructure
Abstract
Much like epitaxial strain, engineering oxygen octahedral rotations (OORs) in perovskite oxide thin films can be a powerful means of manipulating their physical and chemical properties. Here, it is demonstrated that the fundamental character of the metal-insulator transition (MIT) can be sensitively controlled by the structure of the oxygen sublattice for NdNiO3 thin films grown epitaxially on NdGaO3 (110) substrates. The MIT is sharp and hysteretic for a Ni-O-Ni bond angle of 154.0° (6 nm thick film) like the bulk behavior, while it is diffuse and largely nonhysteretic for a bond angle of 149.5° (3 nm thick film), stemming from the smaller bond angle of the NdGaO3 substrate. Using synchrotron X-ray diffraction to quantify the geometric framework of the oxygen sublattice, it is found that the influence of the substrate OORs propagates and decays after a few nanometers into the ultrathin film. The sublattice structure in the 6 nm thick film is similar to that for bulk NdNiO3, leading to the sharp and hysteretic MIT.
- Authors:
-
- Univ. of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China). National Synchrotron Radiation Lab.; Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Materials Science Division
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS)
- Univ. of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China). National Synchrotron Radiation Lab.
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Materials Science Division
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Hefei (China). High Magnetic Field Lab.
- Univ. of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China). National Synchrotron Radiation Lab.; Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). Beijing Advanced Sciences and Innovation Center
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- National Key Research and Development Program of China; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); China Scholarship Council; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1574391
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1532581
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Advanced Materials Interfaces
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 6; Journal Issue: 17; Journal ID: ISSN 2196-7350
- Publisher:
- Wiley-VCH
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; NdNiO3 oxide heterostructure; half-order Bragg reflection; oxygen octahedral tilting and rotation; synchrotron X-ray techniques
Citation Formats
Dong, Yongqi, Ma, Zhiyuan, Luo, Zhenlin, Zhou, Hua, Fong, Dillon D., Wu, Wenbin, and Gao, Chen. Interfacial Octahedral Manipulation Imparts Hysteresis-Free Metal to Insulator Transition in Ultrathin Nickelate Heterostructure. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1002/admi.201900644.
Dong, Yongqi, Ma, Zhiyuan, Luo, Zhenlin, Zhou, Hua, Fong, Dillon D., Wu, Wenbin, & Gao, Chen. Interfacial Octahedral Manipulation Imparts Hysteresis-Free Metal to Insulator Transition in Ultrathin Nickelate Heterostructure. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/admi.201900644
Dong, Yongqi, Ma, Zhiyuan, Luo, Zhenlin, Zhou, Hua, Fong, Dillon D., Wu, Wenbin, and Gao, Chen. Tue .
"Interfacial Octahedral Manipulation Imparts Hysteresis-Free Metal to Insulator Transition in Ultrathin Nickelate Heterostructure". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/admi.201900644. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1574391.
@article{osti_1574391,
title = {Interfacial Octahedral Manipulation Imparts Hysteresis-Free Metal to Insulator Transition in Ultrathin Nickelate Heterostructure},
author = {Dong, Yongqi and Ma, Zhiyuan and Luo, Zhenlin and Zhou, Hua and Fong, Dillon D. and Wu, Wenbin and Gao, Chen},
abstractNote = {Much like epitaxial strain, engineering oxygen octahedral rotations (OORs) in perovskite oxide thin films can be a powerful means of manipulating their physical and chemical properties. Here, it is demonstrated that the fundamental character of the metal-insulator transition (MIT) can be sensitively controlled by the structure of the oxygen sublattice for NdNiO3 thin films grown epitaxially on NdGaO3 (110) substrates. The MIT is sharp and hysteretic for a Ni-O-Ni bond angle of 154.0° (6 nm thick film) like the bulk behavior, while it is diffuse and largely nonhysteretic for a bond angle of 149.5° (3 nm thick film), stemming from the smaller bond angle of the NdGaO3 substrate. Using synchrotron X-ray diffraction to quantify the geometric framework of the oxygen sublattice, it is found that the influence of the substrate OORs propagates and decays after a few nanometers into the ultrathin film. The sublattice structure in the 6 nm thick film is similar to that for bulk NdNiO3, leading to the sharp and hysteretic MIT.},
doi = {10.1002/admi.201900644},
journal = {Advanced Materials Interfaces},
number = 17,
volume = 6,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {7}
}
Figures / Tables:

Works referenced in this record:
X-ray diffraction from rough, relaxed and reconstructed surfaces
journal, March 1989
- Vlieg, E.; Van Der Veen, J. F.; Gurman, S. J.
- Surface Science, Vol. 210, Issue 3
Strongly correlated perovskite fuel cells
journal, May 2016
- Zhou, You; Guan, Xiaofei; Zhou, Hua
- Nature, Vol. 534, Issue 7606
Study of the phase transitions in
journal, January 1999
- Pérez-Cacho, J.; Blasco, J.; García, J.
- Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Vol. 11, Issue 2
Physics of Ultrathin Films and Heterostructures of Rare-Earth Nickelates
journal, July 2016
- Middey, S.; Chakhalian, J.; Mahadevan, P.
- Annual Review of Materials Research, Vol. 46, Issue 1
Oxygen Vacancy Induced Room-Temperature Metal–Insulator Transition in Nickelate Films and Its Potential Application in Photovoltaics
journal, April 2016
- Wang, Le; Dash, Sibashisa; Chang, Lei
- ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 8, Issue 15
Quantifying octahedral rotations in strained perovskite oxide films
journal, July 2010
- May, S. J.; Kim, J. -W.; Rondinelli, J. M.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 82, Issue 1
Electric-Field Control of the Metal-Insulator Transition in Ultrathin NdNiO3 Films
journal, October 2010
- Scherwitzl, Raoul; Zubko, Pavlo; Lezama, I. Gutierrez
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 22, Issue 48
Evidence of strain induced structural change in hetero-epitaxial NdNiO 3 thin films with metal-insulator transition
journal, December 2003
- Laffez, P.; Lebedev, O. I.; Ruello, P.
- The European Physical Journal Applied Physics, Vol. 25, Issue 1
Systematic study of insulator-metal transitions in perovskites RNiO3 (R=Pr,Nd,Sm,Eu) due to closing of charge-transfer gap
journal, April 1992
- Torrance, J.; Lacorre, P.; Nazzal, A.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 45, Issue 14
Thickness-Dependent Structure-Property Relationships in Strained (110) SrRuO 3 Thin Films
journal, October 2012
- Kan, Daisuke; Aso, Ryotaro; Kurata, Hiroki
- Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 23, Issue 9
Key role of lattice symmetry in the metal-insulator transition of NdNiO3 films
journal, April 2016
- Zhang, Jack Y.; Kim, Honggyu; Mikheev, Evgeny
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 6, Issue 1
Comprehensive studies of interfacial strain and oxygen vacancy on metal–insulator transition of VO 2 film
journal, May 2016
- Fan, L. L.; Chen, S.; Liao, G. M.
- Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Vol. 28, Issue 25
Octahedral rotations in strained LaAlO 3 /SrTiO 3 (001) heterostructures
journal, February 2014
- Fister, T. T.; Zhou, H.; Luo, Z.
- APL Materials, Vol. 2, Issue 2
Metal-insulator transitions in thin films
journal, September 2000
- Catalan, G.; Bowman, R. M.; Gregg, J. M.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 62, Issue 12
Control of oxygen octahedral rotations and physical properties in films
journal, December 2013
- Lu, Wenlai; Yang, Ping; Song, Wen Dong
- Physical Review B, Vol. 88, Issue 21
Polarity compensation in ultra-thin films of complex oxides: The case of a perovskite nickelate
journal, October 2014
- Middey, S.; Rivero, P.; Meyers, D.
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 4, Issue 1
Strain-induced tuning of metal–insulator transition in NdNiO3
journal, May 2002
- Tiwari, Ashutosh; Jin, C.; Narayan, J.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 80, Issue 21
Simple ways of determining perovskite structures
journal, November 1975
- Glazer, A. M.
- Acta Crystallographica Section A, Vol. 31, Issue 6
Rare-earth nickelates R NiO 3 : thin films and heterostructures
journal, February 2018
- Catalano, S.; Gibert, M.; Fowlie, J.
- Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 81, Issue 4
Control of Structural Distortions in Transition-Metal Oxide Films through Oxygen Displacement at the Heterointerface
journal, April 2014
- Aso, Ryotaro; Kan, Daisuke; Shimakawa, Yuichi
- Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 24, Issue 33
Dimensionality Controlled Octahedral Symmetry-Mismatch and Functionalities in Epitaxial LaCoO 3 /SrTiO 3 Heterostructures
journal, June 2015
- Qiao, Liang; Jang, Jae Hyuck; Singh, David J.
- Nano Letters, Vol. 15, Issue 7
Lattice distortion effects on electrical switching in epitaxial thin film NdNiO 3
journal, December 1995
- DeNatale, J. F.; Kobrin, P. H.
- Journal of Materials Research, Vol. 10, Issue 12
Progress in perovskite nickelate research
journal, July 2008
- Catalan, G.
- Phase Transitions, Vol. 81, Issue 7-8
Effect of gate voltage polarity on the ionic liquid gating behavior of NdNiO 3 /NdGaO 3 heterostructures
journal, May 2017
- Dong, Yongqi; Xu, Haoran; Luo, Zhenlin
- APL Materials, Vol. 5, Issue 5
Strain Engineering of Octahedral Rotations and Physical Properties of SrRuO3 Films
journal, May 2015
- Lu, Wenlai; Song, Wendong; Yang, Ping
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 5, Issue 1
Evolution of Structural and Electrical Properties of Oxygen-Deficient VO 2 under Low Temperature Heating Process
journal, August 2017
- Zhang, Jiasong; Zhao, Zhengjing; Li, Jingbo
- ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 9, Issue 32
Control of octahedral rotations in (LaNiO ) /(SrMnO ) superlattices
journal, April 2011
- May, S. J.; Smith, C. R.; Kim, J. -W.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 83, Issue 15
Anisotropic-strain-controlled metal-insulator transition in epitaxial NdNiO 3 films grown on orthorhombic NdGaO 3 substrates
journal, October 2013
- Lian, X. K.; Chen, F.; Tan, X. L.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 103, Issue 17
Structural, magnetic and electronic properties of perovskites (R = rare earth)
journal, February 1997
- Medarde, María Luisa
- Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Vol. 9, Issue 8
Heterointerface engineered electronic and magnetic phases of NdNiO3 thin films
journal, November 2013
- Liu, Jian; Kargarian, Mehdi; Kareev, Mikhail
- Nature Communications, Vol. 4, Issue 1
The photoemission study of NdNiO3/NdGaO3 thin films, through the metal–insulator transition
journal, February 2009
- Galicka, K.; Szade, J.; Ruello, P.
- Applied Surface Science, Vol. 255, Issue 8
Strain-sensitive spin-state ordering in thin films of perovskite
journal, November 2015
- Fujioka, J.; Yamasaki, Y.; Doi, A.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 92, Issue 19
Strain dependent stabilization of metallic paramagnetic state in epitaxial NdNiO 3 thin films
journal, September 2012
- Kumar, Yogesh; Choudhary, R. J.; Sharma, S. K.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 101, Issue 13
Novel Electronic Behavior Driving Metal-Insulator Transition
journal, July 2015
- Upton, M. H.; Choi, Yongseong; Park, Hyowon
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 115, Issue 3
Surface X-ray diffraction
journal, May 1992
- Robinson, I. K.; Tweet, D. J.
- Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 55, Issue 5
Three-dimensional atomic scale electron density reconstruction of octahedral tilt epitaxy in functional perovskites
journal, December 2018
- Yuan, Yakun; Lu, Yanfu; Stone, Greg
- Nature Communications, Vol. 9, Issue 1
Tuning bad metal and non-Fermi liquid behavior in a Mott material: Rare-earth nickelate thin films
journal, November 2015
- Mikheev, Evgeny; Hauser, Adam J.; Himmetoglu, Burak
- Science Advances, Vol. 1, Issue 10
Improving of the Thermoelectric Efficiency of LaCoO 3 by Double Substitution with Nickel and Iron
journal, June 2012
- Vulchev, V.; Vassilev, L.; Harizanova, S.
- The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 116, Issue 25
Structure and photoemission spectroscopy of strain-controlled metal-insulator transition in NdNiO3 thin films
journal, March 2009
- Eguchi, R.; Okamoto, Y.; Hiroi, Z.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 105, Issue 5
Structural refinement of Pbnm -type perovskite films from analysis of half-order diffraction peaks
journal, January 2017
- Brahlek, M.; Choquette, A. K.; Smith, C. R.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 121, Issue 4
Correlating interfacial octahedral rotations with magnetism in (LaMnO3+δ)N/(SrTiO3)N superlattices
journal, July 2014
- Zhai, Xiaofang; Cheng, Long; Liu, Yang
- Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Issue 1
Metal-insulator transitions
journal, October 1998
- Imada, Masatoshi; Fujimori, Atsushi; Tokura, Yoshinori
- Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 70, Issue 4, p. 1039-1263
La 2/3 Sr 1/3 VO 3 Thin Films: A New p-Type Transparent Conducting Oxide with Very High Figure of Merit
journal, January 2018
- Hu, Ling; Wei, Renhuai; Yan, Jian
- Advanced Electronic Materials, Vol. 4, Issue 3
Transport properties of NdNiO3 thin films made by pulsed-laser deposition
journal, January 2000
- Catalan, G.; Bowman, R. M.; Gregg, J. M.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 87, Issue 1
Stable metal–insulator transition in epitaxial SmNiO3 thin films
journal, June 2012
- Ha, Sieu D.; Otaki, Miho; Jaramillo, R.
- Journal of Solid State Chemistry, Vol. 190
Metal−Insulator Transitions, Structural and Microstructural Evolution of RNiO 3 (R = Sm, Eu, Gd, Dy, Ho, Y) Perovskites: Evidence for Room-Temperature Charge Disproportionation in Monoclinic HoNiO 3 and YNiO 3
journal, May 1999
- Alonso, José A.; Martínez-Lope, María J.; Casais, María T.
- Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 121, Issue 20
Epitaxial stabilization of ultra-thin films of EuNiO 3
journal, September 2013
- Meyers, D.; Moon, E. J.; Kareev, M.
- Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Vol. 46, Issue 38
The classification of tilted octahedra in perovskites
journal, November 1972
- Glazer, A. M.
- Acta Crystallographica Section B Structural Crystallography and Crystal Chemistry, Vol. 28, Issue 11
Phase control of a perovskite transition-metal oxide through oxygen displacement at the heterointerface
journal, January 2015
- Kan, Daisuke; Aso, Ryotaro; Kurata, Hiroki
- Dalton Transactions, Vol. 44, Issue 23
Thickness Dependent Properties in Oxide Heterostructures Driven by Structurally Induced Metal-Oxygen Hybridization Variations
journal, March 2017
- Liao, Zhaoliang; Gauquelin, Nicolas; Green, Robert J.
- Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 27, Issue 17
Metal-Insulator Transition of strained SmNiO3 Thin Films: Structural, Electrical and Optical Properties
journal, January 2017
- Torriss, B.; Margot, J.; Chaker, M.
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, Issue 1
SmNiO3/NdNiO3 thin film multilayers
journal, June 2011
- Girardot, C.; Pignard, S.; Weiss, F.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 98, Issue 24
Interfacial Octahedral Rotation Mismatch Control of the Symmetry and Properties of SrRuO 3
journal, June 2016
- Gao, Ran; Dong, Yongqi; Xu, Han
- ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 8, Issue 23
Metallic state and the metal-insulator transition of
journal, October 1993
- Granados, X.; Fontcuberta, J.; Obradors, X.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 48, Issue 16
Insulating phase at low temperature in ultrathin La0.8Sr0.2MnO3 films
journal, March 2016
- Feng, Yaqing; Jin, Kui-juan; Gu, Lin
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 6, Issue 1
Colossal resistance switching and band gap modulation in a perovskite nickelate by electron doping
journal, September 2014
- Shi, Jian; Zhou, You; Ramanathan, Shriram
- Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Issue 1
Octahedral Tilt Propagation Controlled by A-Site Cation Size at Perovskite Oxide Heterointerfaces
journal, April 2014
- Aso, Ryotaro; Kan, Daisuke; Shimakawa, Yuichi
- Crystal Growth & Design, Vol. 14, Issue 5
Metal-insulator transitions
journal, June 1991
- Paesler, Michael
- Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, Vol. 130, Issue 1
X-ray diffraction from rough, relaxed and reconstructed surfaces
journal, March 1989
- Vlieg, E.; van der Veen, J. F.; Gurman, S. J.
- Surface Science Letters, Vol. 210, Issue 3
Heterointerface engineered electronic and magnetic phases of NdNiO3 thin films
text, January 2013
- Liu, Jian; Kargarian, Mehdi; Kareev, Mikhail
- arXiv
Insulating phase at low temperature in ultrathin La0.8Sr0.2MnO3 films
text, January 2016
- Feng, Yaqing; Jin, Kui-juan; Gu, Lin
- arXiv
Thickness dependent properties in oxide heterostructures driven by structurally induced metal-oxygen hybridization variations
text, January 2017
- Liao, Zhaoliang; Gauquelin, Nicolas; Green, Robert J.
- arXiv
Figures / Tables found in this record: