Using resonant x-ray spectroscopies combined with density functional calculations, we find an asymmetric biaxial strain-induced d-orbital response in ultrathin films of the correlated metal LaNiO3 which are not accessible in the bulk. The sign of the misfit strain governs the stability of an octahedral "breathing" distortion, which, in turn, produces an emergent charge-ordered ground state with an altered ligand-hole density and bond covalency. Control of this new mechanism opens a pathway to rational orbital engineering, providing a platform for artificially designed Mott materials.

We have succeeded in preparing high-quality Gd-doped single-crystalline EuO films. Using Eudistillation-assisted molecular beam epitaxy and a systematic variation in the Gd and oxygen deposition rates, we have been able to observe sustained layer-by-layer epitaxial growth on yttriastabilized cubic zirconia (001). The presence of Gd helps to stabilize the layer-by-layer growth mode. We used soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy at the Eu and Gd M4,5 edges to confirm the absence of Eu 3+ contaminants and to determine the actual Gd concentration. The distillation process ensures the absence of oxygen vacancies in the films. From magnetization measurements we found the Curie temperature to increase smoothly as a function of doping from 70 K up to a maximum of 125 K. A threshold behavior was not observed for concentrations as low as 0.2%.

Reversible metallization of band and Mott insulators by ionic-liquid gating is accompanied by significant structural changes. A change in conductivity of seven orders of magnitude at room temperature is found in epitaxial films of WO3 with an associated monoclinic-to-cubic structural reorganization. The migration of oxygen ions along open volume channels is the underlying mechanism.

Ionic liquid gating has been shown to metallize initially insulating layers formed from several different oxide materials. Of these vanadium dioxide (VO2) is of especial interest because it itself is metallic at temperatures above its metal-insulator transition. Recent studies have shown that the mechanism of ionic liquid gated induced metallization is entirely distinct from that of the thermally driven metal-insulator transition and is derived from oxygen migration through volume channels along the (001) direction of the rutile structure of VO2. Here we show that it is possible to metallize the entire volume of 10 nm thick layers of VO2 buried under layers of rutile titanium dioxide (TiO2) up to 10 nm thick. Key to this process is the alignment of volume channels in the respective oxide layers, which have the same rutile structure with clamped in-plane lattice constants. The metallization of the VO2 layers is accompanied by large structural expansions of up to ∼6.5% in the out-of-plane direction, but the structure of the TiO2 layer is hardly affected by gating. The TiO2 layers become weakly conducting during the gating process, but in contrast to the VO2 layers, the conductivity disappears on exposure to air. Indeed, even after air exposure, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies show that the VO2 films have a reduced oxygen content after metallization. Ionic liquid gating of the VO2 films through initially insulating TiO2 layers is not consistent with conventional models that have assumed the gate induced carriers are of electrostatic origin.