Anisotropic Strain Induced Directional Metallicity in Highly Epitaxial LaBaCo2O5.5+δ Thin Films on (110) NdGaO3

Chunrui Ma; Dong Han; Ming Liu; Gregory Collins; Haibin Wang; Xing Xu; Yuan Lin; Jiechao Jiang; Shengbai Zhang; Chonglin Chen

doi:10.1038/srep37337

Anisotropic Strain Induced Directional Metallicity in Highly Epitaxial LaBaCo₂O_5.5+δ Thin Films on (110) NdGaO₃

Sci Rep. 2016 Nov 21:6:37337. doi: 10.1038/srep37337.

Authors

Chunrui Ma^{1

2}, Dong Han^{3

4}, Ming Liu⁵, Gregory Collins², Haibin Wang², Xing Xu², Yuan Lin⁶, Jiechao Jiang⁷, Shengbai Zhang⁴, Chonglin Chen²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi 710049, P. R. China.
² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Texas at San Antonio, TX 78249, USA.
³ State Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Applications, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130033, P. R. China.
⁴ Department of Physics, Applied Physics, &Astronomy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180, USA.
⁵ Electronic Materials Research Laboratory and International Center for Dielectric Research, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi 710049, P. R. China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Electronic Thin films and Integrated Devices, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Sichuan 610054, P. R. China.
⁷ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas 76019, USA .

Abstract

Highly directional-dependent metal-insulator transition is observed in epitaxial double perovskite LaBaCo₂O_5.5+δ films. The film exhibit metallic along [100], but remain semiconducting along [010] under application of a magnetic field parallel to the surface of the film. The physical origin for the properties is identified as in-plane tensile strain arising from oxygen vacancies. First-principle calculations suggested the tensile strain drastically alters the band gap, and the vanishing gap opens up [100] conduction channels for Fermi-surface electrons. Our observation of strain-induced highly directional-dependent metal-insulator transition may open up new dimension for multifunctional devices.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.