Work on LaFeO₃/n-SrTiO₃ Interface Published in Physical Review Letters

Dr. Comes’ work on the LaFeO₃/n-SrTiO₃ interface has been published in Physical Review Letters here! In this work, which was done at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in collaboration with Dr. Scott Chambers, we show that the band alignment between LaFeO₃ (LFO) and Nb-doped SrTiO₃ (STO) is relatively insensitive to the interfacial termination. We synthesized a series of LFO films on SrO- and TiO2-terminated STO to examine how changing the interface dipole affects band alignment, which is key to enabling next-generation photovoltaics and photocatalysts. Using in situ x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, we were able to measure the valence band alignment and then determine the conduction band alignment through our measurement of the LFO band gap with ellipsometry. These results help to address some confusing results in the literature and will hopefully generate further study down the road.