During the growth of oxide thin films by pulsed laser deposition, a strong oxygen substrate-to-film transfer has been experimentally observed for SrTiO 3 and LaAlO 3 thin films epitaxially grown on 18 O exchanged SrTiO 3 and LaAlO 3 substrates by secondary ion mass spectrometry depth profiling. This oxygen transfer effect can seriously change the respective thin film properties. Taking the oxygen substrate contribution to the overall oxygen balance into account, original ways to design material properties of oxide thin films can be envisioned like a controlled charge carrier doping of SrTiO 3 thin films.

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Using neutron reflectometry and resonant x-ray techniques we studied the magnetic proximity effect (MPE) in superlattices composed of superconducting YBa2Cu3O7 and ferromagnetic-metallic La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 or ferromagnetic-insulating LaMnO(3+δ). We find that the MPE strongly depends on the electronic state of the manganite layers, being pronounced for the ferromagnetic-metallic La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 and almost absent for ferromagnetic-insulating LaMnO(3+δ). We also detail the change of the magnetic depth profile due to the MPE and provide evidence for its intrinsic nature.

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With pulsed laser deposition we have grown c-axis oriented thin films of the nominal composition LaMnO 3 (LMO) on LSAT(001) substrates. We find that, depending on the oxygen background pressure during growth, the LMO films contain sizeable amounts of La and/or Mn vacancies that strongly influence their electronic and magnetic properties. Specifically, we show that the Mn/La ratio can be systematically varied from 0.92 at 0.11 mbar to 1.09 at 0.30 mbar of oxygen.These cationic vacancies lead to markedly different disorder effects that become most pronounced once the samples are fully oxygenated and thus strongly hole doped. All as-grown and thus slightly oxygen deficient LMO films are ferromagnetic insulators with saturation moments in excess of 2.5  Bper Mn ion, their transport and optical properties can be understood in terms of trapped ferromagnetic polarons. Upon oxygen annealing, the most La-deficient films develop a metallic response with an 39