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    Structural phase separation and electrical transport modulations in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 bilayers

    Zheng Qin1,*, Mengsha Li2,*, Junhao Ding1, Qian Liu3, Bowen Xu3, Liqiang Xu1, Kun Han1, Guanyin Gao4, Wenbin Wu4 et al.

    Pingfan Chen1,†, Ariando Ariando2,‡, and Zhen Huang1,3,§

    • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
    • †Contact author: chenpf@ahu.edu.cn
    • ‡Contact author: ariando@nus.edu.sg
    • §Contact author: huangz@ahu.edu.cn

    Phys. Rev. B 113, 235308 – Published 12 June, 2026

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/fzj3-1ncl

    Abstract

    The interplay between electronic modification and lattice distortion is critical for understanding emergent phenomena in correlated oxide heterostructures. For the conventional LaAlO3//SrTiO3 interface fabricated on the SrTiO3 substrates, a 3% lattice mismatch dominates the interfacial lattice distortion, thereby hindering the exploration of the coupling between LaAlO3 crystal structure and SrTiO3 transport property. Here, when the epitaxial strain is reduced to 2% by growing the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 bilayers on the (La,Sr)(Al,Ta)O3 substrates, the LaAlO3 layers exhibit diffraction features consistent with the coexistence of two structural phases, labeled as P1 and P2. This structural inhomogeneity could be attributed to the competing interlayer interactions between LaAlO3 and SrTiO3. While the charge transfer that compensates the polar discontinuity results in the formation of oxygen vacancy in LaAlO3 to expand its lattice, the interfacial redox reaction drives the oxygen migration from SrTiO3 to LaAlO3 with LaAlO3 lattice shrinkage. Increasing the LaAlO3 layer thickness reduces the lattice difference between P1 and P2 phases, suppressing the potential fluctuations near the conduction band minimum of SrTiO3 and improving interfacial carrier mobility. Our findings provide new insights into the structural evolution at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface, as well as the interlayer coupling between crystal structure and electrical transport across the correlated oxide heterostructure.

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