TY - JOUR
T1 - Coherent growth of oxide films on a cleaved layered metal oxide substrate
AU - Siwakoti, Prahald
AU - Guo, Hangwen
AU - Wang, Zhen
AU - Zhu, Yimei
AU - Fittipaldi, Rosalba
AU - Vecchione, Antonio
AU - Wang, Y.
AU - Mao, Zhiqiang
AU - Zhang, Jiandi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 American Physical Society.
PY - 2018/10/18
Y1 - 2018/10/18
N2 - Understanding oxide interface-induced effects requires controlled epitaxial growth of films on well-defined substrate surfaces. While conventional film growth on ex situ prepared substrates has proven to be a successful route, the choices of appropriate substrates with atomically defined surfaces are limited. Here, by depositing La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 on Sr2RuO4 (001), we present an alternative method of growing oxide thin films on in situ cleaved surfaces of layered-structured substrates. Cleaving Sr2RuO4 at low temperature in ultrahigh vacuum exposes an atomically flat, solely SrO-terminated surface with up to micrometer-scale terraces. The deposition of La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 spontaneously diminishes the surface RuO6 in-plane rotational distortion of the substrate and results in a cubic-like perovskite film structure with (La/Sr)-O layer termination. The interface is atomically sharp without obvious deviation of lattice spacing and chemical valence, except in the first unit cell where Ru-Mn intermixing is observed. These results demonstrate that film growth on a cleaved substrate can be an alternative route to obtain well-defined interfaces and in addition increase the availability of substrates for future oxide films.
AB - Understanding oxide interface-induced effects requires controlled epitaxial growth of films on well-defined substrate surfaces. While conventional film growth on ex situ prepared substrates has proven to be a successful route, the choices of appropriate substrates with atomically defined surfaces are limited. Here, by depositing La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 on Sr2RuO4 (001), we present an alternative method of growing oxide thin films on in situ cleaved surfaces of layered-structured substrates. Cleaving Sr2RuO4 at low temperature in ultrahigh vacuum exposes an atomically flat, solely SrO-terminated surface with up to micrometer-scale terraces. The deposition of La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 spontaneously diminishes the surface RuO6 in-plane rotational distortion of the substrate and results in a cubic-like perovskite film structure with (La/Sr)-O layer termination. The interface is atomically sharp without obvious deviation of lattice spacing and chemical valence, except in the first unit cell where Ru-Mn intermixing is observed. These results demonstrate that film growth on a cleaved substrate can be an alternative route to obtain well-defined interfaces and in addition increase the availability of substrates for future oxide films.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.2.104407
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.2.104407
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85059866358
SN - 2475-9953
VL - 2
JO - Physical Review Materials
JF - Physical Review Materials
IS - 10
M1 - 104407
ER -