Textured Manganite Films Anywhere.

New paradigms are required in microelectronics when the transistor is in its downscaling limit and integration of materials presenting functional properties not available in classical silicon is one of the promising alternatives. Here, we demonstrate the possibility to grow La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 (LSMO) functional materials on amorphous substrates with properties close to films grown on single-crystalline substrates using a two-dimensional seed layer. X-ray diffraction and electron backscatter diffraction mapping demonstrate that the Ca2Nb3O10- nanosheet (NS) layer induces epitaxial stabilization of LSMO films with a strong out-of-plane (001) texture, whereas the growth of LSMO films on uncoated glass substrates exhibits a nontextured polycrystalline phase. The magnetic properties of LSMO films deposited on NS are similar to those of the LSMO grown on SrTiO3 single-crystal substrates in the same conditions (which is used as a reference in this work). Moreover, transport measurements take advantages of the texture and polycrystalline properties to induce low-field magnetoresistance at low temperature and also a high value of 40% magnetoresistance from 10 to 300 K, making it interesting for sensor applications. Therefore, the NS seed layer offers new perspectives for the integration of functional materials grown at moderate temperatures on any substrate, which will be the key for the development of oxitronics.

Chemical Strain Engineering of Magnetism in Oxide Thin Films.

Transition metal oxides having a perovskite structure form a wide and technologically important class of compounds. In these systems, ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, ferroelastic, or even orbital and charge orderings can develop and eventually coexist. These orderings can be tuned by external electric, magnetic, or stress field, and the cross-couplings between them enable important multifunctional properties, such as piezoelectricity, magneto-electricity, or magneto-elasticity. Recently, it has been proposed that additional to typical fields, the chemical potential that controls the concentration of ion vacancies in these systems may reveal an efficient alternative parameter to further tune their properties and achieve new functionalities. In this study, concretizing this proposal, the authors show that the control of the content of oxygen vacancies in perovskite thin films can indeed be used to tune their magnetic properties. Growing PrVO3 thin films epitaxially on an SrTiO3 substrate, the authors reveal a concrete pathway to achieve this effect. The authors demonstrate that monitoring the concentration of oxygen vacancies through the oxygen partial pressure or the growth temperature can produce a substantial macroscopic tensile strain of a few percent. In turn, this strain affects the exchange interactions, producing a nontrivial evolution of Néel temperature in a range of 30 K.

Universal Fabrication of 2D Electron Systems in Functional Oxides.

2D electron systems (2DESs) in functional oxides are promising for applications, but their fabrication and use, essentially limited to SrTiO3 -based heterostructures, are hampered by the need for growing complex oxide overlayers thicker than 2 nm using evolved techniques. It is demonstrated that thermal deposition of a monolayer of an elementary reducing agent suffices to create 2DESs in numerous oxides.

Structural and Dielectric Properties of Subnanometric Laminates of Binary Oxides.

Capacitors with a dielectric material consisting of amorphous laminates of Al2O3 and TiO2 with subnanometer individual layer thicknesses can show strongly enhanced capacitance densities compared to the bulk or laminates with nanometer layer thickness. In this study, the structural and dielectric properties of such subnanometer laminates grown on silicon by state-of-the-art atomic layer deposition are investigated with varying electrode materials. The laminates show a dielectric constant reaching 95 combined with a dielectric loss (tan δ) of about 0.2. The differences of the observed dielectric properties in capacitors with varying electrodes indicate that chemical effects at the interface with the TiN electrode play a major role, while the influence of the local roughness of the individual layers is rather limited.

Interface effects in perovskite thin films.

The control of matter properties (transport, magnetic, dielectric,…) using synthesis as thin films is strongly hindered by the lack of reliable theories, able to guide the design of new systems, through the understanding of the interface effects and of the way the substrate constraints are imposed on the material. The present Letter analyzes the energetic contributions at the interfaces, and proposes a model describing the microscopic mechanisms governing the interactions at an epitaxial interface between a manganite and another transition metal oxide in perovskite structure (as for instance SrTiO3). The model is checked against experimental results and literature analysis.

Large increase of the curie temperature by orbital ordering control.

Using first principle calculations we showed that the Curie temperature of manganites thin films can be increased by far more than an order of magnitude by applying appropriate strains. Our main breakthrough is that the control of the orbital ordering responsible for the spectacular T{C} increase cannot be imposed by the substrate only. Indeed, the strains, first applied by the substrate, need to be maintained over the growth direction by the alternation of the manganite layers with another appropriate material. Following these theoretical findings, we synthesized such superlattices and verified our theoretical predictions.