Semi-metallic SrIrO 3 films using solid-source metal-organic molecular beam epitaxy

• Published in: APL materials Vol. 10; no. 9
• Main Authors: Choudhary, Rashmi, Nair, Sreejith, Yang, Zhifei, Lee, Dooyong, Jalan, Bharat
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Institute of Physics 01.09.2022
• ISSN: 2166-532X; 2166-532X

Perovskite SrIrO 3 films and its heterostructures are very promising, yet less researched, avenues to explore interesting physics originating from the interplay between strong spin–orbit coupling and electron correlations. Elemental iridium is a commonly used source for molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) synthesis of SrIrO 3 films. However, elemental iridium is extremely difficult to oxidize and evaporate while maintaining an ultra-high vacuum and a long mean free path. Here, we calculated a thermodynamic phase diagram to highlight these synthesis challenges for phase-pure SrIrO 3 and other iridium-based oxides. We addressed these challenges using a novel solid-source metal-organic MBE approach that rests on the idea of modifying the metal-source chemistry. Phase-pure, single-crystalline, coherent, epitaxial (001) pc SrIrO 3 films on (001) SrTiO 3 substrate were grown. Films demonstrated semi-metallic behavior, Kondo scattering, and weak antilocalization. Our synthesis approach has the potential to facilitate research involving iridate heterostructures by enabling their atomically precise syntheses.