Effect of oxygen intercalation into oxygen-deficient SrFe0.8Co0.2O3−δ thin films

Controlling oxygen contents is an easy way to tune physical properties in the transition metal oxides. In particular, Fe and/or Co containing oxides are often found to show different electronic states with different valence states by the method. In this report, we synthesized oxygen-deficient SrFe0.8Co0.2O3−δ thin films on (001) (LaAlO3)0.3-(SrAl0.5Ta0.5O3)0.7 substrates by pulsed laser deposition and observed the modification of its electronic state by facile low temperature oxidative annealing. As a result of simple oxidative annealing, we achieved a huge decrease of the lattice constant, reduction in electric resistivity, an increase of the valence states of both Co and Fe, and an increase of hybridization between oxygen and transition metal ions without losing the crystallinity.