Band Alignment, Built-In Potential, and the Absence of Conductivity at the LaCrO3/SrTiO3(001) Heterojunction

Core-level and valence-band x-ray photoemission spectra measured for molecular-beam-epitaxy-grown LaCrO3/SrTiO3(001) yield band offsets and potential gradients within the LaCrO3 sufficient to trigger an electronic reconstruction to alleviate the polarity mismatch. Yet, the interface is insulating. Based on first principles calculations, we attribute this unexpected result to interfacial cation mixing combined with charge redistribution within CrO2 layers, enabled by low-lying d states within LaCrO3, which suppresses an electronic reconstruction.