Strain Tuning of Metal-to-Insulator Phase Transition in Perovskite Nickelate Membranes

The electronic structures of complex transition metal oxides (TMO) are sensitive to the detailed energy balance between electron-electron interaction, bandwidth, and oxygen p – transition metal d charge transfer energy, and thus can be tuned by external stimuli, such as electric field, magnetic field, and strain ^{[1, 2]}. Recent advances of obtaining freestanding TMO membranes on flexible substrates through releasing from water-soluble templates has served as an emerging platform for study strain response of TMO ^[3-5]. We developed an in situ mechanical strain manipulation stage inside a cryostat. The greatly enhanced threshold fracture strain at low temperatures ^[6] enables precise and large strain tunability to freestanding TMO membranes. In this work, we report strain-tunable metal-to-insulator phase transitions in perovskite nickelates, offering new insights into strain-driven phenomena in strongly correlated electron systems.



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