Room temperature epitaxial stabilization of a tetragonal phase in ARuO3 (A=Ca and Sr) thin films

We demonstrate that SrRuO3 and CaRuO3 thin films undergo a room temperature structural phase transition driven by the substrate imposed epitaxial biaxial strain. As tensile strain increases, ARuO(3) (A=Ca and Sr) films transform from the orthorhombic phase which is usually observed in bulk SrRuO3 and CaRuO3 at room temperature into a tetragonal phase which in bulk samples is only stable at higher temperatures. More importantly, we show that the observed phenomenon strongly affects the electronic and magnetic properties of ARuO(3) thin films that are grown on different single crystal substrates which, in turn, offers the possibility to tune these properties. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.