Strain-Induced Creation and Switching of Anion Vacancy Layers in Perovskite Oxynitrides

Published

November 23, 2020

Author(s)

Takafumi Yamamoto, Akira Chikamatsu, Shunsaku Kitagawa, Nana Izumo, Shunsuke Yamashita, Hiroshi Takatsu, Masayuki Ochi, Takahiro Maryuama, Morito Namba, Wenhao Sun, Takahide Nakashima, Fumitaka Takeiri, Kotaro Fujii, Masatomo Yashima, Yuki Sugisawa, Masahito Sano, Yashushi Hirose, Daiichiro Sekiba, Craig Brown, Takashi Honda, Kazutaka Ikeda, Toshiya Otomo, Kazuhiko Kuroki, Kenji Ishida, Takao Mori, Koji Kimoto, Tetsuya Hasegawa, Hiroshi Kageyama

Abstract

Perovskite oxides, ABO₃, can host a variety of anion vacancies in the form of chains or layers, which results in various properties^1-3 and thus the manipulation of vacancy patterns is of considerable interest. Separately, lattice strain between thin-film oxides and a substrate has been extensively exploited to improve functions or to induce novel states of matter.^4-9 Here we combine these two aspects to achieve strain-induced switching of anion-vacancy patterns in vanadium perovskite films. SrVO₃ is topochemically converted to anion-deficient oxynitrides by low-temperature treatment with ammonia, where the direction or periodicity of defect planes is altered depending on the substrate on which the film is deposited. First principles calculations on oxynitrides with (111) and (112) defect planes validated the observed biaxial strain effect along [111]. Like oxide heterostructures, the oxynitride with (111) defect planes has a superlattice of insulating and metallic blocks, leading to a spin-density-wave (SDW) transition. Given the abundance of perovskite family compositions, this study provides new opportunities to design perovskite superlattices toward acquiring novel functions by chemically modifying simple perovskite oxides with controllable and tunable anion-vacancy planes through epitaxial lattice strain. (183 words)

Citation

Nature Communications

Volume

11

Issue

1

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

strain-control, vacancies, crystallography, film, neutron diffraction

Citation

Yamamoto, T. , Chikamatsu, A. , Kitagawa, S. , Izumo, N. , Yamashita, S. , Takatsu, H. , Ochi, M. , Maryuama, T. , Namba, M. , Sun, W. , Nakashima, T. , Takeiri, F. , Fujii, K. , Yashima, M. , Sugisawa, Y. , Sano, M. , Hirose, Y. , Sekiba, D. , Brown, C. , Honda, T. , Ikeda, K. , Otomo, T. , Kuroki, K. , Ishida, K. , Mori, T. , Kimoto, K. , Hasegawa, T. and Kageyama, H. (2020), Strain-Induced Creation and Switching of Anion Vacancy Layers in Perovskite Oxynitrides, Nature Communications (Accessed October 1, 2025)