Magnetic properties in strained PrVO3 thin films

Transition metal oxides often having a perovskite structure form a wide and technologically important class of compounds. In these systems, ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, ferroelastic, or even orbital and charge orderings can develop and eventually coexist. These orderings can be tuned by external electric, magnetic, or stress field, and the cross-couplings between them enable important multifunctional properties, such as piezoelectricity, magneto-electricity, or magneto-elasticity.
Here, a series of high quality epitaxial PrVO3 (PVO) thin films were grown, by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique, as a function of thickness on various substrates inducing different types of strains. Using a battery of techniques, I will show how the strains modify the magnetic properties and structural characteristics of the layers. At the end, I will propose a model based on dead layer to explain the data.