Epitaxial growth and transport properties of compressively-strained Ba₂IrO₄ films

Ba₂IrO₄ is a sister compound of the widely investigated Sr₂IrO₄ and has no IrO₆ octahedral rotation nor net canted antiferromagnetic moment, thus it acts as a system more similar to the high-T_c cuprate. In this work, we synthesize the Ba₂IrO₄ epitaxial films by reactive molecular beam epitaxy and study their crystalline structure and transport properties under biaxial compressive strain. High resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction confirm the high quality of films with partial strain relaxation. Under compressive epitaxial strain, the Ba₂IrO₄ exhibits the strain-driven enhancement of the conductivity, consistent with the band gap narrowing and the stronger hybridization of Ir-t_2g and O-2p orbitals predicted in the first-principles calculations.