SmNiO3/NdNiO3 thin film multilayers

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the successful stabilization of rare earth nickelate multilayers, specifically SmNiO3/NdNiO3, using Metal-Organic Chemical Vapour Deposition, overcoming bulk instability issues.

Contribution

It reports the first stabilization of SmNiO3/NdNiO3 multilayers in thin film form, with structural and phase evidence provided by X-ray and Raman scattering.

Findings

Successful deposition of SmNiO3/NdNiO3 multilayers.

Structural confirmation of metastable phases.

Electrical measurements support structural quality.

Abstract

Rare earth nickelates RENiO3 which attract interest due to their sharp metal-insulator phase transition, are instable in bulk form due to the necessity of an important oxygen pressure to stabilize Ni in its 3+ state of oxidation. Here, we report the stabilization of rare earth nickelates in [(SmNiO3)t/(NdNiO3)t]n thin film multilayers, t being the thickness of layers alternated n times. Both bilayers and multilayers have been deposited by Metal-Organic Chemical Vapour Deposition. The multilayer structure and the presence of the metastable phases SmNiO3 and NdNiO3 are evidenced from by X-ray and Raman scattering. Electric measurements of a bilayer structure further support the structural quality of the embedded rare earth nickelate layers.