Thermodynamic instability at the stoichiometric LaAlO3/SrTiO3(001) interface

J Phys Condens Matter. 2010 Aug 11;22(31):312201. doi: 10.1088/0953-8984/22/31/312201. Epub 2010 Jul 16.

Abstract

Stoichiometric epitaxial LaAlO(3) grown on TiO(2)-terminated SrTiO(3)(001) by off-axis pulsed laser deposition is shown to exhibit strong cation intermixing. This result is corroborated by classical and quantum mechanical calculations of the relative stabilities of abrupt and intermixed interface configurations. The valence band offset was measured to be 0.16 ± 0.10 eV, and this value cannot be accounted for theoretically without including intermixing in the physical description of the interface.