Effects of substrate temperature on the unusual non-Fermi liquid metal to insulator transition in perovskite SrIrO3 thin films

TL;DR

This study investigates how substrate temperature influences the transition between non-Fermi liquid metal and insulator states in SrIrO3 thin films, revealing growth conditions critically affect electronic properties.

Contribution

It demonstrates that substrate temperature controls the metal-insulator transition and highlights the role of inhomogeneous Ir distribution in electronic transport behavior.

Findings

Metallic films exhibit non-Fermi liquid resistivity behavior.

Higher growth temperatures lead to inhomogeneous Ir distribution.

Inhomogeneity correlates with insulating behavior.

Abstract

Electronic transport has been investigated for strong spin-orbit coupled perovskite SrIrO3 thin films grown at various substrate temperatures. The electronic transport of the SrIrO3 films is found to be very sensitive to the growth parameters; in particular, the film can either be a metal or an insulator depending upon the substrate growth temperature. While all the metallic films show unusual sublinear temperature dependent non-Fermi liquid behaviors in resistivity, the insulating film grown at a higher temperature stands out for its inhomogeneous Ir distribution, as analyzed by secondary ion mass spectrometry. This observation demonstrates that the inhomogeneous distribution of cations can be one of the fundamental factors in affecting the electronic transport in heavy element based oxide films and heterostructures.