Competition between Carrier Injection and Structural Distortions in Electron‐Doped Perovskite Nickelate Thin Films

Abstract

The discovery of superconductivity in doped infinite‐layer nickelate thin films has brought increased attention to the behavior of the doped perovskite phase. Despite this interest, the majority of existing studies pertain to hole‐doped perovskite rare‐earth nickelate thin films, while most electron‐doping studies have been performed on bulk materials so far. To tackle this imbalance, a detailed study that addresses doping of NdNiO$_{3}$ thin films using A‐site substitution is presented, using Pb as a dopant and taking advantage of its valence‐skipping nature. Through a combination of complementary techniques including X‐ray diffraction, transport measurements, X‐ray absorption spectroscopy, electron energy‐loss spectroscopy and scanning transmission electron microscopy, the valence of Pb in the Nd$_{1−x}$Pb$_{x}$NiO$_{3}$ structure is confirmed to be 4+, and the behavior of the doped thin films is found to be controlled by a competition between carrier injection and structural distortions, which respectively reduce and increase the metal‐to‐insulator transition temperature. This work provides a systematic study of electron doping in NdNiO$_{3}$, demonstrating that A‐site substitution with Pb is an appropriate method for such doping in perovskite rare‐earth nickelate systems.