Electronic, lattice, and spin interactions at the interfaces between crystalline complex transition metal oxides can give rise to a wide range of functional electronic and magnetic phenomena not found in bulk. At hetero-interfaces, these interactions may be enhanced by combining oxides where the polarity changes at the interface. The physical structure between non-polar SrTiO3 and polar La1−xSrxMnO3(x=0.2) is investigated using high resolution synchrotron x-ray diffraction to directly determine the role of structure in compensating the polar discontinuity. At both the oxide-oxide interface and vacuum-oxide interfaces, the lattice is found to expand and rumple along the growth direction. The SrTiO3/La1−xSrxMnO3 interface also exhibits intermixing of La and Sr over a few unit cells. The results, hence, demonstrate that polar distortions and ionic intermixing coexist and both pathways play a significant role at interfaces with polar discontinuities.
@article{arxiv.1704.05114,
title = {Structural Distortions At Polar Manganite Interfaces},
author = {S. Koohfar and A. S. Disa and M. Marshall and F. J. Walker and C. H. Ahn and D. P. Kumah},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.05114},
year = {2017}
}