Varbaro, LuciaMundet, BernatBandyopadhyay, SubhadeepDominguez, ClaribelFowlie, JenniferKorosec, LukasHsu, Chih-YingAlexander, Duncan T LGhosez, PhilippeTriscone, Jean-Marc2024-04-032024-04-032024-04-032024-03-0110.1063/5.0184306https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/206879WOS:001180028900002Heterostructures consisting of SmNiO3 and NdNiO3 alternating layers with additional LaAlO3 spacer layers were grown and fully characterized by means of x-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, and scanning transmission electron microscopy. A change in the orientation of the orthorhombic long-axis of the nickelate layers is observed when a single unit cell of LaAlO3 is inserted between SmNiO3 and NdNiO3, in agreement with density functional theory calculations. At the same time, the structure of the ultra-thin rhombohedral LaAlO3 layers is affected by their proximity to orthorhombic nickelate layers, with both scanning transmission electron microscopy studies and density functional theory calculations revealing a weak antipolar motion of the La-cation in the LaAlO3 layers that is not present in the bulk rhombohedral structure of this compound.TechnologyPhysical Sciencestext::journal::journal article::research article