%0 Journal Article
%A C. Rayan Serrao
%A J F Liu
%A J.T Heron
%A G Singh-Bhalla
%A Ajay K Yadav
%A S.J Suresha
%A R.J Paull
%A D Yi
%A J.-H Chu
%A M Trassin
%A A Vishwanath
%A E Arenholz
%A C Frontera
%A J Železný
%A T Jungwirth
%A X Marti
%A Ramamoorthy Ramesh
%B Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
%D 2013
%G eng
%R 10.1103/PhysRevB.87.085121
%T Epitaxy-distorted spin-orbit Mott insulator in Sr2IrO 4 thin films
%V 87
%X High-quality epitaxial thin films of Jeff = 1/2 Mott insulator Sr2IrO4 with increasing in-plane tensile strain have been grown on top of SrTiO3(001) substrates. Increasing the in-plane tensile strain up to ∼0.3% was observed to drop the c/a tetragonality by 1.2%. X-ray absorption spectroscopy detected a strong reduction of the linear dichroism upon increasing in-plane tensile strain towards a reduced anisotropy in the local electronic structure. While the most relaxed thin film shows a consistent dependence with previously reported single crystal bulk measurements, electrical transport reveals a charge gap reduction from 200 meV down to 50 meV for the thinnest and most epitaxy-distorted film. We argue that the reduced tetragonality plays a major role in the change of the electronic structure, which is reflected in the change of the transport properties. Our work opens the possibility for exploiting epitaxial strain as a tool for both structural and functional manipulation of spin-orbit Mott systems. © 2013 American Physical Society.