Spectral Evidence of Correlation-Controlled Metal–Insulator Transition in Nd<sub>1–<i>x</i></sub>Sr<sub><i>x</i></sub>NiO<sub>3</sub> Thin Films
Epitaxial growth serves as a critical platform for tailoring electronic interactions. Here, we synthesized high-quality Nd<sub>1-<i>x</i></sub>Sr<sub><i>x</i></sub>NiO<sub>3</sub> thin films on (La<sub>0.3</sub>Sr<sub>0.7</sub>)(Al<sub>0.65</sub>Ta<sub>0.35</sub>)O<sub>3</sub> (LSAT) (001) and SrTiO<sub>3</sub> (STO) (001) substrates and systematically investigated the effects of substrate strain and chemical doping on their low-energy electronic structures using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). Transport measurements reveal that Sr doping strongly suppresses the metal-insulator transition (MIT) temperature <i>T</i><sub>MIT</sub> on both substrates, with accelerated suppression in STO (001)-grown samples. Our ARPES results reveal that beyond a chemical potential shift, Sr doping significantly alters the effective mass, with a larger change observed in Nd<sub>1-<i>x</i></sub>Sr<sub><i>x</i></sub>NiO<sub>3</sub>/STO (001) than in LSAT-based films. These findings indicate that Sr doping, combined with epitaxial strain, alters the correlation strength, thereby modifying the MIT. Our results unravel the intricate interplay among multiple degrees of freedom in Nd<sub>1-<i>x</i></sub>Sr<sub><i>x</i></sub>NiO<sub>3</sub> thin films, deepening the understanding of nickelate-based heterostructure design and engineering.
Authors
- Rui Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4361-1971)
- Juan Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0438-2814)
- Zhengtai Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3328-165X)
- Dawei Shen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2402-7956)
- Donglai Feng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9370-5357)
- Rui Peng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2507-4615)
- Zhisheng Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8492-0151)
- Peng Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3497-1887)
- Huacheng Ye (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3800-1335)
- Yilin Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3386-5380)
- Sen Liao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2758-4611)
- Chihao Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4435-2249)
- Xianglin Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9373-1448)
- Kai Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7667-3063)
- Lingfei Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1675-0941)
- Yuzhe Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0588-897X)
- Long Wei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7138-6532)
- Jianghao Yao
Institutions
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Fudan University (CN)
- Hefei University (CN)
- Hefei National Center for Physical Sciences at Nanoscale (CN)
- Shanghai Advanced Research Institute (CN)
- Science and Technology on Surface Physics and Chemistry Laboratory (CN)
- National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (CN)
- Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility
- State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nano Letters
- Published
- 2025-08-11
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c02559
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.43
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- National Key Research and Development Program of China