Epitaxial growth and substitution control of SrIr1− <i>x</i> Sn <i>x</i> O3 thin films by dual-beam pulsed laser deposition

Abstract

The emergent antiferromagnetic insulating phase of SrIr1−xSnxO3 has functional spintronic properties but is critically sensitive to the substitution concentration x, which is difficult to precisely tune in thin films grown by conventional pulsed laser deposition (PLD). We demonstrate the efficient composition control of epitaxial SrIr1−xSnxO3 thin films on SrTiO3(001) using a dual-beam PLD technique, co-ablating SrIrO3 and SrSnO3 targets. By controlling the relative beam intensity, we achieve wide-range tuning of x (from ∼0.15 to ∼0.45), which is estimated from using the out-of-plane lattice parameter c. This substitution control is confirmed by a systematic evolution of the magnetic and transport properties, including a monotonic increase in resistivity and a dome-like evolution of the Néel temperature and remnant magnetization. This work establishes dual-beam PLD as an efficient method for substitution control in iridates with the lattice parameter as a reliable indicator of the property evolution.