Strain dependence of the electronic properties of LaTiO3 thin films

Abstract

We report on the transport and the core-level X-ray photoemission spectroscopy data of fully-strained LaTiO3 thin films grown on GdScO3 and SrTiO3 substrates. We observed that LaTiO3 thin film grown on GdScO3 showed insulating behavior but that grown on SrTiO3 exhibited a metallic character. We found that while the La 4d photoemission spectra of the two films were nearly the same, their Ti 2p and O 1s data revealed a difference. Our results suggest that strain-induced changes in the Ti-O bonding play an important role in the electronic properties of LaTiO3 thin films.