Metal-Insulator Transition in UltrathinLaNiO3Films

Abstract

Transport in ultrathin films of LaNiO3 evolves from a metallic to a strongly localized character as the film's thickness is reduced and the sheet resistance reaches a value close to h/e 2 , the quantum of resistance in two dimensions. In the intermediate regime, quantum corrections to the Drude lowtemperature conductivity are observed; they are accurately described by weak localization theory. Remarkably, the negative magnetoresistance in this regime is isotropic, which points to magnetic scattering associated with the proximity of the system to either a spin glass state or the charge ordered antiferromagnetic state observed in other rare earth nickelates.Complex oxides are exciting materials in which the interplay between charge, spin, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom leads to a wealth of novel and exotic phenomena. Among these materials, LaNiO 3 (LNO), a metal and paramagnet lacking any ordering phenomena in bulk [1][2][3], has recently become the subject of intense research. This was mainly triggered by theoretical work [4] which suggested the possibility of orbital ordering and high-T c superconductivity in superlattices where very thin LNO layers are separated by insulating layers, confining the conduction to two dimensions (2D). These predictions have yet to be confirmed experimentally. LNO bulk and thin films have been extensively studied in the past, showing a large effective mass and enhanced Pauli paramagnetism, which has been attributed to strong correlations [1,2,5]. This material has also been reported to be sensitive to the degree of disorder. For instance, increasing the amount of oxygen vacancies can lead to weak localization and metal-insulator (MI) transitions, as well as antiferromagnetic ordering and spin glass behaviour [6][7][8]. LNO based heterostructures have been grown and transport measurements have revealed a MI transition as the LNO thickness is reduced to only a few unit cells (u.c.) [9,10]. This behaviour is in agreement with the MI transition observed in single ultrathin LNO films [11]. Understanding the nature of transport for this compound in the ultrathin limit appears essential for future investigation of LNO-based heterostructures and serves as the motivation for this work. Upon reduction of the LNO thickness, transport evolves from a metallic to a strongly localized behavior as the room temperature sheet resistance approaches h/e 2 ∼ 25 kΩ, the quantum of resistance in 2D. We find a transition region between the metallic and the strongly localized states where the films show an upturn in the resistivity at low temperatures which can be explained by the theory of weak localization. Surprisingly, the magnetoresistance (MR) is found to be isotropic in this regime. We attribute this to the presence of magnetic scattering and discuss its possible origins. Films were grown on (001) SrTiO 3 substrates by off-axis rf magnetron sputtering, leading to fully strained epi-

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Experimental verification of orbital engineering at the atomic scale: Charge transfer and symmetry breaking in nickelate heterostructures

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