Oxygen Disorder, a Way to Accommodate Large Epitaxial Strains in Oxides

Strain accommodation in oxide thin films: Density-functional calculations (total-energy comparisons) and checks for negative-frequency phonon modes are employed as a stability indicator to show that, in rutile- and fluorite-structure oxides, e.g., zirconia strained by a strontium titanate substrate, oxygen-sublattice disorder can be the energetically preferred way to accommodate strain.