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Local octahedral rotations and octahedral connectivity in epitaxially strained LaNiO3/LaGaO3 superlattices

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Abstract

For ABO3 perovskites, octahedral rotations and distortions couple strongly to the functional properties. However, in short period perovskite superlattices, the characterization of the octahedral behavior remains challenging due to the local structural variations of the BO6 octahedra. By aberration-corrected high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, we investigated the local octahedral rotations in a [(4 unit cell (u.c.)//4 u.c.) × 8] LaNiO3/LaGaO3 superlattice grown on a (001) SrTiO3 substrate. The octahedral behavior varies along the growth direction even though the superlattice is coherently strained. Near the substrate, octahedral rotations about [100] and [010] axes in the superlattice are suppressed due to the octahedral connectivity—rotational magnitudes and patterns—between the NiO6 and TiO6 octahedra. Away from the substrate, the magnitudes of [100] and [010] rotations are enhanced as a response to substrate-induced tensile strain. Near the surface of the superlattice, the [100] and [010] rotational magnitudes of NiO6 and GaO6 relax to the bulk values of LaNiO3 and LaGaO3, respectively. Our results indicate that the response of octahedral rotations to epitaxial strain in superlattices is significantly different from that in thin films.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Sabine Grözinger for cross-section TEM sample preparation. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts (MWK) of the state Baden-Württemberg within the DFG: KA 1295/17-1 Project.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central Facility of Electron Microscopy, Electron Microscopy Group of Materials Science, University of Ulm, Albert Einstein Allee 11, 89081, Ulm, Germany

    H. Y. Qi, M. K. Kinyanjui, J. Biskupek, D. Geiger & U. Kaiser

  2. Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Heisenbergstrasse 1, 70569, Stuttgart, Germany

    E. Benckiser, H.-U. Habermeier & B. Keimer

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  1. H. Y. Qi
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Correspondence to H. Y. Qi.

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Qi, H.Y., Kinyanjui, M.K., Biskupek, J. et al. Local octahedral rotations and octahedral connectivity in epitaxially strained LaNiO3/LaGaO3 superlattices. J Mater Sci 50, 5300–5306 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-015-9077-y

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