Strain-dependent transport properties of the ultra-thin correlated metal, LaNiO3

We explore the electrical transport and magneto-conductance (MC) in quasi-two-dimensional strongly correlated ultra-thin films of LaNiO3 (LNO) to investigate the effect of hetero-epitaxial strain on electron-electron and electron-lattice interactions from the low to intermediate temperature range (2-170 K). The fully epitaxial 10 unit cell thick films spanning tensile strain up to ∼4% are used to investigate the effects of enhanced carrier localization driven by a combination of weak localization (WL) and electron-electron interactions at low temperatures. The MC data show the importance of the increased contribution of WL to low-temperature quantum corrections. The obtained results demonstrate that with increasing tensile strain and reduced temperature, the quantum-confined LNO system gradually evolves from the Mott into the Mott-Anderson regime.