Oxygen-vacancy-induced atomic and electronic reconstructions in magnetic Sr(Ti0.875Fe0.125)O3-δ thin films

Abstract The atomic and electronic structures have been investigated for the multiferroic behavior in the perovskite oxides, which also can be tuned by oxygen vacancy for enhancing properties. Here epitaxial Sr(Ti 0.875 Fe 0.125 )O 3- δ thin films were deposited on (001) SrTiO 3 substrates by pulsed laser deposition and were post-annealed in an oxygen atmosphere. We found that the oxygen vacancies formed in high vacuum are the source of the macroscopic crystal distortion as the growth strain along out-of-plane . Moreover, it was determined that the full-filled Fe 3 d states induced by oxygen vacancy effect are responsible for the decreased magnetization. This work demonstrates that the oxygen vacancy can both lead to atomic and electronic reconstructions in the perovskite films for manipulating ferroic properties.