Engineering electrical property of Dirac semimetal perovskite SrIrO3 thin films by subtle changes in lattice structure

Abstract

We synthesized orthorhombic SrIrO3 thin films on SrTiO3(001) substrates by employing pulsed laser deposition with systematic variation of the growth temperature and laser fluence. Despite of the different growth conditions, the low temperature resistivity only varies in the mΩ cm range. However, the characteristic temperature dependence varies with the growth condition, and displays the so-called "insulator-like", "intermediate", or "metal-like" behavior. We found that the alternative of metal-like or insulator-like electrical property is relevant to subtle changes in the lattice structure of semi-metallic SrIrO3 likely caused by small rotations of the IrO6 octahedrons.