This paper deals with the role of epitaxial strain on the structure and electronic transport properties of metastable SmNiO3 layers grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition onto SrTiO3 and LaAlO3 substrates. The characterization of these layers is carried out by high resolution x-ray diffraction and four-probe resistivity measurements. It is found that the SmNiO3 phase is stabilized by in-plane compressive strain whereas in-plane tensile strain induces the creation of oxygen vacancies that induces an annihilation of the metal-insulator transition and a huge increase of the resistivity

Despite outstanding properties, the development of 3C-SiC electronics continues to suffer from the lack of good quality, bulk 3C-SiC substrates. Up to now, there is no real seed and/or optimized growth processes. In this work, we address these two different issues. A two-step approach is shown, which couples the advantage of vapour-liquid-solid hetero-epitaxial growth of 3C-SiC on a 6H-SiC substrate for the seed formation and the ones of the continuous feed physical vapour transport method for the growth of the bulk material at reasonably high rate. Using such an approach, we could combine the elimination of the twin boundaries which systematically form in the 3C/6H-SiC epitaxial system, with getting a growth rate of about 0.2 mm/h for the bulk material. An evaluation of results is done, with respect to the change in growth conditions.