Template Engineering of Metal-to-Insulator Transitions in Epitaxial Bilayer Nickelate Thin Films

Understanding metal-to-insulator phase transitions in solids has been a keystone not only for discovering novel physical phenomena in condensed matter physics but also for achieving scientific breakthroughs in materials science. In this work, we demonstrate that the transport properties (i.e., resis...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:ACS applied materials & interfaces 2021-11, Vol.13 (45), p.54466-54475
Main Authors: Lee, Jongmin, Kim, Gi-Yeop, Jeong, Seyeop, Yang, Mihyun, Kim, Jong-Woo, Cho, Byeong-Gwan, Choi, Yongseong, Kim, Sangmo, Choi, Jin San, Lee, Tae Kwon, Kim, Jiwoong, Lee, Dong Ryeol, Chang, Seo Hyoung, Park, Sungkyun, Jung, Jong Hoon, Bark, Chung Wung, Koo, Tae-Young, Ryan, Philip J, Ihm, Kyuwook, Kim, Sanghoon, Choi, Si-Young, Kim, Tae Heon, Lee, Sanghan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
heteroepitaxy
MATERIALS SCIENCE
metal-to-insulator phase transition
oxide
Surfaces, Interfaces, and Applications
template engineering
thin film
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Summary:Understanding metal-to-insulator phase transitions in solids has been a keystone not only for discovering novel physical phenomena in condensed matter physics but also for achieving scientific breakthroughs in materials science. In this work, we demonstrate that the transport properties (i.e., resistivity and transition temperature) in the metal-to-insulator transitions of perovskite nickelates are tunable via the epitaxial heterojunctions of LaNiO3 and NdNiO3 thin films. A mismatch in the oxygen coordination environment and interfacial octahedral coupling at the oxide heterointerface allows us to realize an exotic phase that is unattainable in the parent compound. With oxygen vacancy formation for strain accommodation, the topmost LaNiO3 layer in LaNiO3/NdNiO3 bilayer thin films is structurally engineered and it electrically undergoes a metal-to-insulator transition that does not appear in metallic LaNiO3. Modification of the NdNiO3 template layer thickness provides an additional knob for tailoring the tilting angles of corner-connected NiO6 octahedra and the linked transport characteristics further. Our approaches can be harnessed to tune physical properties in complex oxides and to realize exotic physical phenomena through oxide thin-film heterostructuring.
ISSN:1944-8244
1944-8252
DOI:10.1021/acsami.1c13675