A laser-ARPES study of LaNiO3thin films grown by sputter deposition

Abstract

Thin films of the correlated transition-metal oxide LaNiO3 undergo a metal-insulator transition when their thickness is reduced to a few unit cells. Here, we use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to study the evolution of the electronic structure across this transition in a series of epitaxial LaNiO3 films of thicknesses ranging from 19 u.c. to 2 u.c. grown in situ by RF magnetron sputtering. Our data show a strong reduction in the electronic mean free path as the thickness is reduced below 5 u.c. This prevents the system from becoming electronically two-dimensional, as confirmed by the largely unchanged Fermi surface seen in our experiments. In the insulating state, we observe a strong suppression of the coherent quasiparticle peak, but no clear gap. These features resemble previous observations of the insulating state of NdNiO3.