Octahedral tilting in strained LaVO3 thin films

The effect of biaxial strain on the oxygen octahedra rotations in a LaVO3 thin film is investigated using synchrotron radiation. First, we find that the film adopts a distorted orthorhombic structure under the compressive stress induced by the SrTiO3 substrate. Second, we separate the contribution to the superstructure peaks arising from cation displacement and VO6 rotations in order to quantify the rotation angles. Finally, we find an original a(-)a(+)c(-) tilt system, which is induced by the biaxial strain imposed by the substrate. These quantitative results may open up new directions for understanding the modification of electronic properties of engineered oxide films.