Abstract
Perovskite SrIrO3 films and its heterostructures are very promising, yet less researched, avenues to explore interesting physics originating from the interplay between strong spin-orbit coupling and electron correlations. Elemental iridium is a commonly used source for molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) synthesis of SrIrO3 films. However, elemental iridium is extremely difficult to oxidize and evaporate while maintaining an ultra-high vacuum and a long mean free path. Here, we calculated a thermodynamic phase diagram to highlight these synthesis challenges for phase-pure SrIrO3 and other iridium-based oxides. We addressed these challenges using a novel solid-source metal-organic MBE approach that rests on the idea of modifying the metal-source chemistry. Phase-pure, single-crystalline, coherent, epitaxial (001)pc SrIrO3 films on (001) SrTiO3 substrate were grown. Films demonstrated semi-metallic behavior, Kondo scattering, and weak antilocalization. Our synthesis approach has the potential to facilitate research involving iridate heterostructures by enabling their atomically precise syntheses.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 091118 |
Journal | APL Materials |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 9 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 1 2022 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022 Author(s).