We have investigated the electronic properties of epitaxial orthorhombic SrIrO3 thin-films under compressive strain. The metastable, orthorhombic SrIrO3 thin-films are synthesized on various substrates using an epi-stabilization technique. We have observed that as in-plane lattice compression is increased, the dc-resistivity (\r{ho}) of the thin films increases by a few orders of magnitude, and the d\r{ho}/dT changes from positive to negative values. However, optical absorption spectra show Drude-like, metallic responses without an optical gap opening for all compressively-strained thin films. Transport measurements under magnetic fields show negative magneto-resistance at low temperature for compressively-strained thin-films. Our results suggest that weak localization is responsible for the strain-induced metal-insulator transition for the orthorhombic SrIrO3 thin-films.
@article{arxiv.1406.6640,
title = {Compressive strain-induced metal-insulator transition in orthorhombic SrIrO3 thin films},
author = {J. H. Gruenewald and J. Nichols and J. Terzic and G. Cao and J. W. Brill and S. S. A. Seo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1406.6640},
year = {2014}
}