Low-dimensional Mott material: Transport in ultrathin epitaxial LaNiO3 films

Son, Junwoo; Moetakef, Pouya; LeBeau, James M.; Ouellette, Daniel G.; Balents, Leon; Allen, S. J.; Stemmer, Susanne

doi:10.1063/1.3309713

Applied Physics Letters

2010

DOI: 10.1063/1.3309713

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Low-dimensional Mott material: Transport in ultrathin epitaxial LaNiO3 films

Junwoo Son¹,

Pouya Moetakef²,

James M. LeBeau³

et al.

Abstract: Electrical resistivity and magnetotransport are explored for thin (3–30 nm), epitaxial LaNiO3 films. Films were grown on three different substrates to obtain LaNiO3 films that are coherently strained, with different signs and magnitude of film strain. It is shown that d-band transport is inhibited as the layers progress from compression to tension. The Hall coefficient is “holelike.” Increasing tensile strain causes the film resistivity to increase, causing strong localization to appear below a critical thickn… Show more

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Cited by 205 publications

(199 citation statements)

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“…A key prediction of our work is a strong site dependence of the local magnetic susceptibility, with one sublattice exhibiting a Curie be-havior and the other a temperature independent χ. The transition we have identified may be related to the insulating behavior observed in few-layer LaNiO 3 -based heterostructures [25,26] where DFT+U calculations [26,27] suggest that disproportionation can occur and drive a transition.…”

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confidence: 99%

Site-Selective Mott Transition in Rare-Earth-Element Nickelates

2012

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A combination of density functional and dynamical mean field theory calculations are used to show that the remarkable metal-insulator transition in the rare earth nickelate perovskites arise from a site-selective Mott phase, in which the d-electrons on a half of the Ni ions are localized to form a fluctuating moment while the d-electrons on other Ni ions form a singlet with holes on the surrounding oxygen ions. The calculation reproduces key features observed in the nickelate materials, including an insulating gap in the paramagnetic state, a strong variation of static magnetic moments among Ni sites and an absence of "charge order". A connection between structure and insulating behavior is documented. The site-selective Mott transition may be a more broadly applicable concept in the description of correlated materials.

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confidence: 99%

Site-Selective Mott Transition in Rare-Earth-Element Nickelates

2012

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“…However, we believe that our elastic parameters pretty reliably describe monoclinic LaNiO 3 as long as the thickness of the film is sufficiently large to prevent from the occurrence of metal-to-insulator transition. Experimental investigation of electrical resistivity [52] and electronic structure [53] has revealed that films that are thick enough (10 nm or somewhat less depending on the substrate) show clearly pro-nounced metallic behaviour that is typical for bulk LaNiO 3 and can be properly represented at DFT level. But for the ultrathin LaNiO 3 films composed of only several monolayers, a metal-to-insulator transition is observed and a standard DFT scheme fails to reproduce it [53].…”

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confidence: 99%

Elastic properties of rhombohedral, cubic, and monoclinic phases of LaNiO 3 by first principles calculations

Masys

Jonauskas

2015

Computational Materials Science

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By applying density functional theory (DFT) approximations, we present a firstprinciples investigation of elastic properties for the experimentally verified phases of a metallic perovskite LaNiO 3 . In order to improve the accuracy of calculations, at first we select the most appropriate DFT approaches according to their performance in reproducing the low-temperature crystalline structure and the electronic density of states observed for the bulk LaNiO 3 . Then, we continue with the single-crystal elastic constants and mechanical stability for the most common rhombohedral as well as high-temperature cubic and strain-induced monoclinic phases. Together with the calculated single-crystal elastic constants, the deduced polycrystalline properties, including bulk, shear, and Young's moduli, Poisson's ratio, Vickers hardness, sound velocities, Debye temperature, and anisotropy indexes, remedy the existing gap of knowledge about the elastic and mechanical behaviour of LaNiO 3 , at least from a theoretical standpoint.

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“…These three regimes also pertain to films grown on different substrates, such as LaAlO 3 , NdGaO 3 , KTaO 3 , and MgO (as well as LaAlO 3 , LSAT and DyScO 3 in Ref. [14]). We may conclude that the LNO films undergo a MI transition upon reducing the number of layers and that strong localization effects are seen in the 5 u.c.…”

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confidence: 99%

Metal-Insulator Transition in UltrathinLaNiO3Films

et al. 2011

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Transport in ultrathin films of LaNiO3 evolves from a metallic to a strongly localized character as the film's thickness is reduced and the sheet resistance reaches a value close to h/e 2 , the quantum of resistance in two dimensions. In the intermediate regime, quantum corrections to the Drude lowtemperature conductivity are observed; they are accurately described by weak localization theory. Remarkably, the negative magnetoresistance in this regime is isotropic, which points to magnetic scattering associated with the proximity of the system to either a spin glass state or the charge ordered antiferromagnetic state observed in other rare earth nickelates.Complex oxides are exciting materials in which the interplay between charge, spin, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom leads to a wealth of novel and exotic phenomena. Among these materials, LaNiO 3 (LNO), a metal and paramagnet lacking any ordering phenomena in bulk [1][2][3], has recently become the subject of intense research. This was mainly triggered by theoretical work [4] which suggested the possibility of orbital ordering and high-T c superconductivity in superlattices where very thin LNO layers are separated by insulating layers, confining the conduction to two dimensions (2D). These predictions have yet to be confirmed experimentally. LNO bulk and thin films have been extensively studied in the past, showing a large effective mass and enhanced Pauli paramagnetism, which has been attributed to strong correlations [1,2,5]. This material has also been reported to be sensitive to the degree of disorder. For instance, increasing the amount of oxygen vacancies can lead to weak localization and metal-insulator (MI) transitions, as well as antiferromagnetic ordering and spin glass behaviour [6][7][8]. LNO based heterostructures have been grown and transport measurements have revealed a MI transition as the LNO thickness is reduced to only a few unit cells (u.c.) [9,10]. This behaviour is in agreement with the MI transition observed in single ultrathin LNO films [11]. Understanding the nature of transport for this compound in the ultrathin limit appears essential for future investigation of LNO-based heterostructures and serves as the motivation for this work. Upon reduction of the LNO thickness, transport evolves from a metallic to a strongly localized behavior as the room temperature sheet resistance approaches h/e 2 ∼ 25 kΩ, the quantum of resistance in 2D. We find a transition region between the metallic and the strongly localized states where the films show an upturn in the resistivity at low temperatures which can be explained by the theory of weak localization. Surprisingly, the magnetoresistance (MR) is found to be isotropic in this regime. We attribute this to the presence of magnetic scattering and discuss its possible origins. Films were grown on (001) SrTiO 3 substrates by off-axis rf magnetron sputtering, leading to fully strained epi-

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Low-dimensional Mott material: Transport in ultrathin epitaxial LaNiO3 films

Cited by 205 publications

References 20 publications

Site-Selective Mott Transition in Rare-Earth-Element Nickelates

Site-Selective Mott Transition in Rare-Earth-Element Nickelates

Elastic properties of rhombohedral, cubic, and monoclinic phases of LaNiO 3 by first principles calculations

Metal-Insulator Transition in UltrathinLaNiO3Films

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