Snapshots of an oxide heterojunction reveal an interfacial atomic shuffle

[...]a research team at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Wash., has taken a step forward with its use of shuttered molecular beam epitaxy, electron energy-loss spectroscopy, and ab initio simulations to explore the structure and dynamics of interface synthesis. Scanning transmission electron microscopy-electron energy-loss spectroscopy (STEM-EELS) composition maps of LaFeO3 grown on SrTiO3 with a SrO termination (left) and that of LaFeO3 grown on a SrTiO3 substrate with a TiO2 termination (right) are nearly identical and show that both have LaO/TiO2 interfaces. According to the simulations, the key lies in the first film layer deposited on the substrate.