[Article] - Growth orientation and magnetic properties of GdVO3 tailored by epitaxial strain engineering

Monday, September 15, 2025 - 17:40

We have grown epitaxial GdVO3 thin films onto different substrates, and revealed that epitaxial strain engineering has a significant influence on the type of spin ordering and allowed tuning the antiferromagnetic transition temperature. This opens new routes for oxide based electronic devices.

Transition-metal oxides with an ABO3 perovskite structure exhibit significant coupling between spin, orbital, and lattice degrees of freedom, highlighting the crucial role of lattice distortion in tuning the electronic and magnetic properties of these systems. In this study, we grow a series of antiferromagnetic GdVO3 thin films on different substrates introducing various strain values. The results demonstrate that the strain not only affects the material’s structure and magnetic transition temperature, but also influences the growth direction of the orthorhombic unit cell. A correlation is observed between the orientation of the orthorhombic long axis direction and the material’s Néel temperature. Density functional theory calculations highlighting the link between strain, lattice distortions, and magnetic characteristics confirm these conclusions. Our findings demonstrate that the development of novel features in RVO3 through material design requires control of growth orientation through strain engineering.

Autors
M. Martirosyan, A. Gudima , J. Varignon, J. Ghanbaja, S. Migot , A. David, M. Guennou, et O. Copie

References
Physical Review Materials 9, 074405 (2025)

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/k1d6-ffkp