Structural, magnetic and magnetotransport properties of bi-epitaxial La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (110) thin films integrated on Si (001)

Abstract

We report the growth of bi-epitaxial La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (110) thin films on Si (001) substrate with cubic yttria stabilized zirconia (c-YSZ)/SrTiO3 (STO) buffer layers by pulsed laser deposition. The La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 and STO thin films were grown with a single [110] out-of-plane orientation and with two in-plane domain variants, which is confirmed by XRD and detailed TEM studies. The growth of STO on c-YSZ can be explained by the paradigm of domain matching epitaxy. The epitaxial relationship between STO and c-YSZ can be written as [110] (001) c-YSZ ‖ [1¯11¯] (110) STO (or) [110] (001) c-YSZ ‖ [1¯12¯] (110) STO. The La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 thin films are ferromagnetic with Curie temperature 324 K and showed metal to insulator transition at 285 K. The La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 thin films showed hysteresis loops in magnetoresistance when magnetic field is applied along both in-plane (110) and out-of-plane [110] directions. The highest magnetoresistance obtained in this study is −32% at 50 K and 50 kOe for in-plane configuration, whereas the room-temperature magnetoresistance is −4% at 10 kOe and −17% at 50 kOe. The hysteresis in the magnetoresistance and the controlled domain boundaries in bi-epitaxial La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 films integrated on Si can offer significant advantages over the polycrystalline counterparts.