Low temperature transport measurements on atomically smooth metallic and oxygen deficient strontium titanate

Atomically smooth, TiO2 terminated SrTiO3 (STO) substrates were prepared using a combination of chemical and thermal annealing treatments. The TiO2 terminated surface was obtained by etching with aqua regia solution and thermal annealing at 1000 °C for 30 min. The subsequent vacuum annealing at 830 °C for 10 min generated an atomically smooth and metallic surface of STO. In this paper, we report low temperature transport measurements down to 50 mK on these samples which clearly exhibit a metallic temperature dependence in the resistance. The samples show no sign of superconductivity down to the lowest temperatures.The R(T) data provide information on the physical origin of metallic behavior in STO, which might also be relevant to the current research interest in oxide interfaces.