Tuning of the Optical Properties of the Transparent Conducting Oxide SrVO₃ by Electronic Correlations

Abstract

Abstract The vanadate SrVO 3 is a transparent conductor perovskite with optical and electrical properties competing with those of the most‐used indium tin oxide material. Although its charge density is comparable to that of metals, SrVO 3 shows a plasma frequency below the visible range due to strong electronic correlations characterizing the electronic transport in this material and enhancing the effective mass. Therefore, the well‐known interplay between the structure and the electronic properties of strongly correlated systems can be used in such transparent conductor to tune the optical properties, as the plasma frequency also depends on the effective mass. In this study, SrVO 3 films are grown by pulsed laser deposition onto different lattice mismatched perovskite substrates such as SrTiO 3 , LaAlO 3 , and (LaAlO 3 ) 0.3 (Sr 2 TaAlO 6 ) 0.7 at different growth temperatures. The structural, electronic, and optical properties are analyzed, illustrating the influence of the strain on the structure of the films and on a shift of the plasma frequency. The electronic correlations in this new group of transparent conducting oxides can be therefore used as a supplementary lever for the tuning of the functional properties.