Perovskite nickelate heterostructure consisting of single unit cell of EuNiO3 and LaNiO3 have been grown on a set of single crystalline substrates by pulsed laser interval deposition to investigate the effect of epitaxial strain on electronic and magnetic properties at the extreme interface limit. Despite the variation of substrate in-plane lattice constants and lattice symmetry, the structural response to heterostructuring is primarily controlled by the presence of EuNiO3 layer. In sharp contrast to bulk LaNiO3 or EuNiO3, the superlattices grown under tensile strains exhibit metal to insulator transition (MIT) below room temperature. The onset of magnetic and electronic transitions associated with the MIT can be further separated by application of large tensile strain. Furthermore, these transitions can be entirely suppressed by very small compressive strain. X-ray resonant absorption spectroscopy measurements reveal that such strain-controlled MIT is directly linked to strain induced self-doping effect without any chemical doping.
@article{arxiv.1807.00449,
title = {Epitaxial strain modulated electronic properties of interface controlled nickelate superlattice},
author = {S. Middey and D. Meyers and Shashank Kumar Ojha and M. Kareev and X. Liu and Y. Cao and J. W. Freeland and J. Chakhalian},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1807.00449},
year = {2018}
}