Electronic and optical properties of strain-locked metallic Ti2O3 films

We successfully grow corundum structured Ti2O3 films on c-plane sapphire substrates using pulsed laser deposition. Temperature dependent resistivity measurements show that a metal to insulator transition (MIT) is suppressed, showing conducting behavior at all temperatures. Samples still show an increase in resistivity as temperature is decreased, a characteristic indicative of a semiconducting phase. Our films exhibit grain size on the order of 30 nm which induce a strain consistent with nanoparticle Ti2O3 showing a (c/a) ratio of 2.7. The imposed strain causes an increase in the c-axis length as the temperature is decreased, and thereby suppresses the transition to an insulating phase. Our optical data agrees with this result, showing the lack of a band gap and the electronic structure consistent with bulk high temperature metallic Ti2O3 with the a1g - egπ interband transition shifted down to 0.7 eV from its bulk insulating value of ∼1 eV.