Complex oxide heterointerfaces can host a rich of emergent phenomena, and epitaxial growth is usually at the heart of forming these interfaces. Recently, a strong crystalline-orientation-dependent two-dimensional superconductivity was discovered at interfaces between KTaO3 single-crystal substrates and films of other oxides. Unexpectedly, rare of these oxide films was epitaxially grown. Here, we report the existence of superconductivity in epitaxially grown LaVO3/KTaO3(111) heterostructures, with a superconducting transition temperature of ~0.5 K. Meanwhile, no superconductivity was detected in the (001)- and (110)-orientated LaVO3/KTaO3 heterostructures down to 50 mK. Moreover, we find that for the LaVO3/KTaO3(111) interfaces to be conducting, an oxygen-deficient growth environment and a minimum LaVO3 thickness of ~0.8 nm (~ 2 unit cells) are needed.
@article{arxiv.2208.05712,
title = {Superconductivity in epitaxially grown LaVO3/KTaO3(111) heterostructures},
author = {Yuan Liu and Zhongran Liu and Meng Zhang and Yanqiu Sun and He Tian and Yanwu Xie},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.05712},
year = {2023}
}