Switching of majority charge carriers by Zn doping in NdNiO₃ thin films

Abstract

We have studied the effects of Zn doping on the structural and electronic properties of epitaxial NdNiO3 thin films grown on single-crystal LaAlO3 (001) (LAO) substrates by pulsed laser deposition. The films are deposited in two sets, one with variation in Zn doping, and another with variation in thickness for undoped and 2% Zn doping. The experimental investigations show that Zn occupies Ni-site and that the films are grown with an in-plane compressive strain on LAO. All the films show metal-to-insulator transitions with a thermal hysteresis in the temperature-dependent resistivity curves except 5% Zn-doped film, which remains metallic. The theoretical fits show non-Fermi liquid behaviour, which gets influenced by Zn doping. The Hall resistance measurements clearly show that Zn doping causes injection of holes in the system which affects the electronic properties as follows: i) the metallic conduction increases by two factors just by 0.5% Zn doping whereas, 5% doping completely suppresses the insulating state, ii) a reversal of the sign of Hall coefficient of resistance is observed at low temperature.