In situ photoemission study of LaNiO3 thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition

We investigate the electronic structure of high-quality single-crystal LaNiO3(LNO) thin films using in situ photoemission spectroscopy (PES) in order to reveal the intrinsic electronic structure of LNO. The O ls X-ray absorption (XAS) spectrum, which have much deeper probing depth than that of PES measurement, is in good agreement with previous studies on polycrystalline LNO surfaces. The in situ valence band PES spectrum shows well-resolved Ni 3d-derived t(2g) and e(g) features, while earlier X-ray photoemission studies on polycrystals showed a single band peak. The narrow e(g)-derived feature exhibits enhanced intensity compared to local density approximation band structure calculations. The results are consistent with a renormalization of electronic states at E-F, in terms of the known enhanced effective mass. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.