title: Thermodynamic instability at the stoichiometric LaAlO3/SrTiO3(001) interface.
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.
authors.affiliation: Fundamental and Computational Science Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.forename: T C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Droubay
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Shutthanandan
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: P V
authors.initials: PV
authors.lastname: Sushko
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Chambers