Epitaxial Strain of Rare-Earth Nickelates on STO Using Pulsed Laser Deposition

Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is a technique for making atomically thin layers of a sample by aiming an ultraviolet laser in a vacuum chamber and letting laser pulses ablate the desired deposition material. Using PLD, we can create devices of different layers of materials at various desired thicknesses. In this project, we report the results of a heterostructure with \ce{YAlO3} (YAO) and \ce{NdNiO3} (NNO) deposited on an \ce{SrTiO3} (STO) substrate. Taking advantage of the interactions between crystalline layers, we aim to deposit a buffer layer of \ce{YAlO3}, about a few 100 nanometers in thickness, in order to create a thin layer of \ce{NdNiO3} that is conductive at all temperatures. We report atomic force microscopy, X-ray reflectivity, and X-ray diffraction data on two samples to evaluate the relative success of our current deposition conditions.Physic