Arturas Vailionis

Misfit strain accommodation in epitaxial ABO3 perovskites: Lattice rotations and lattice modulations

We present a study of the lattice response to the compressive and tensile biaxial stress in La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 (LSMO) and SrRuO3 (SRO) thinfilms grown on a variety of single-crystal substrates: SrTiO3,DyScO3, NdGaO3, and (La,Sr)(Al,Ta)O3. The results show that, in thin films under misfit strain, both SRO and LSMO lattices, which in bulk form have orthorhombic (SRO) and rhombohedral (LSMO) structures, assume unit cells that are monoclinic under compressive stress and tetragonal under tensile stress. The applied stress effectively modifies the BO6 octahedra rotations, whose degree and direction can be controlled by the magnitude and sign of the misfit strain. Such lattice distortions change the B-O-B bond angles and therefore are expected to affect magnetic and electronic properties of the ABO3 perovskites.

Evidence of superdense aluminium synthesized by ultrafast microexplosion

At extreme pressures and temperatures, such as those inside planets and stars, common materials form new dense phases with compacted atomic arrangements and unusual physical properties. The synthesis and study of new phases of matter at pressures above 100 GPa and temperatures above 104 K—warm dense matter—may reveal the functional details of planet and star interiors, and may lead to materials with extraordinary properties. Many phases have been predicted theoretically that may be realized once appropriate formation conditions are found. Here we report the synthesis of a superdense stable phase of body-centred-cubic aluminium, predicted by first-principles theories to exist at pressures above 380 GPa. The superdense Al phase was synthesized in the non-equilibrium conditions of an ultrafast laser-induced microexplosion confined inside sapphire (α-Al2O3). Confined microexplosions offer a strategy to create and recover high-density polymorphs, and a simple method for tabletop study of warm dense matter.

Optimized fabrication of high-quality La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 thin films considering all essential characteristics

In this paper, an overview of the fabrication and properties of high-quality La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 (LSMO) thin films is given. A high-quality LSMO film combines a smooth surface morphology with a large magnetization and a small residual resistivity, while avoiding precipitates and surface segregation. In the literature, typically only a few of these issues are adressed. We therefore present a thorough characterization of our films, which were grown by pulsed laser deposition. The films were characterized with reflection high energy electron diffraction, atomic force microscopy, x-ray diffraction, magnetization and transport measurements, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning transmission electron microscopy. The films have a saturation magnetization of 4.0 µB/Mn, a Curie temperature of 350 K and a residual resistivity of 60 µΩ cm. These results indicate that high-quality films, combining both large magnetization and small residual resistivity, were realized. A comparison between different samples presented in the literature shows that focussing on a single property is insufficient for the optimization of the deposition process. For high-quality films, all properties have to be adressed. For LSMO devices, the thin-film quality is crucial for the device performance. Therefore, this research is important for the application of LSMO in devices.

High-Temperature Magnetic Insulating Phase in Ultrathin La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 Films

We present a study of the thickness dependence of magnetism and electrical conductivity in ultrathin La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 films grown on SrTiO3 (110) substrates. We found a critical thickness of 10 unit cells below which the conductivity of the films disappeared and simultaneously the Curie temperature increased, indicating a magnetic insulating phase at room temperature. These samples have a Curie temperature of about 560 K with a significant saturation magnetization of 1.2±0.2μ(B)/Mn. The canted antiferromagnetic insulating phase in ultra thin films of n<10 coincides with the occurrence of a higher symmetry structural phase with a different oxygen octahedra rotation pattern. Such a strain engineered phase is an interesting candidate for an insulating tunneling barrier in room temperature spin polarized tunneling devices.

Controlling Electric Dipoles in Nanodielectrics and Its Applications for Enabling Air-Stable n-Channel Organic Transistors

We present a new method to manipulate the channel charge density of field-effect transistors using dipole-generating self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) with different anchor groups. Our approach maintains an ideal interface between the dipole layers and the semiconductor while changing the built-in electric potential by 0.41-0.50 V. This potential difference can be used to change effectively the electrical properties of nanoelectronic devices. We further demonstrate the application of the SAM dipoles to enable air-stable operation of n-channel organic transistors.

Growth and physical properties of epitaxial metastable cubic TaN (001)

We report the growth of epitaxial metastable B1 NaCl structure TaN(001) layers. The films were grown on MgO(001) at 600 °C by ultrahigh vacuum reactive magnetron sputter deposition in mixed Ar/N2 discharges maintained at 20 mTorr (2.67 Pa). X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy results establish the epitaxial relationship as cube-on-cube, (001)TaN∥(001)MgO with [100]TaN∥[100]MgO, while Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy shows that the layers are overstoichiometric with N/Ta=1.22±0.02. The room-temperature resistivity is 225 μΩ cm with a small negative temperature dependence between 20 and 400 K. The hardness and elastic modulus, as determined by nanoindentation measurements, are 30.8±0.9 and 457±16 GPa, respectively.

Imaging and control of ferromagnetism in LaMnO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures

Control of magnetism in heterostructures The interface between two different materials in a heterostructure can exhibit properties unique to either of the two materials alone. A well-known example is a conducting gas that forms when LaAlO3 is grown on SrTiO3, but only if the LaAlO3 layer is at least four unit cells thick. Wang et al. report a similarly abrupt magnetic transition in a heterostructure formed by another oxide (LaMnO3) on the same SrTiO3 substrate. Even though bulk LaMnO3 is an antiferromagnet, when six or more unit-cell layers of it were deposited on SrTiO3, it behaved like a ferromagnet. Science, this issue p. 716 Superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry is used to observe a magnetic transition in an oxide heterostructure. Oxide heterostructures often exhibit unusual physical properties that are absent in the constituent bulk materials. Here, we report an atomically sharp transition to a ferromagnetic phase when polar antiferromagnetic LaMnO3 (001) films are grown on SrTiO3 substrates. For a thickness of six unit cells or more, the LaMnO3 film abruptly becomes ferromagnetic over its entire area, which is visualized by scanning superconducting quantum interference device microscopy. The transition is explained in terms of electronic reconstruction originating from the polar nature of the LaMnO3 (001) films. Our results demonstrate that functionalities can be engineered in oxide films that are only a few atomic layers thick.

Room temperature epitaxial stabilization of a tetragonal phase in ARuO3 (A = Ca and Sr) thin films

We demonstrate that SrRuO3 and CaRuO3 thin films undergo a room temperature structural phase transition driven by the substrate imposed epitaxial biaxial strain. As tensile strain increases, ARuO3 (A = Ca and Sr) films transform from the orthorhombic phase which is usually observed in bulk SrRuO3 and CaRuO3 at room temperature into a tetragonal phase which in bulk samples is only stable at higher temperatures. More importantly, we show that the observed phenomenon strongly affects the electronic and magnetic properties of ARuO3 thin films that are grown on different single crystal substrates which, in turn, offers the possibility to tune these properties

TiN(001) and TiN(111) island coarsening kinetics: in-situ scanning tunneling microscopy studies

Abstract In-situ high-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy was used to follow the coarsening (Ostwald ripening) and decay kinetics of two-dimensional TiN islands on atomically-flat TiN(001) and TiN(111) terraces at 750–950°C. The rate-limiting mechanism for island decay was found to be adatom surface-diffusion on (001) and attachment/detachment at step edges on (111) surfaces. We have modeled island decay kinetics based upon the Gibbs–Thomson and steady-state diffusion equations to obtain a 001-step edge energy per unit length of 0.23±0.05 eV/A with an activation energy of 3.4±0.3 eV for adatom formation and diffusion on TiN(001). The activation energy for adatom formation and attachment/detachment on TiN(111) is 3.5±0.3 eV.

Scalable fabrication of strongly textured organic semiconductor micropatterns by capillary force lithography.

Strongly textured organic semiconductor micropatterns made of the small molecule dioctylbenzothienobenzothiophene (C(8)-BTBT) are fabricated by using a method based on capillary force lithography (CFL). This technique provides the C(8)-BTBT solution with nucleation sites for directional growth, and can be used as a scalable way to produce high quality crystalline arrays in desired regions of a substrate for OFET applications.