  Rare earth perovskite oxides constitute a wide family of materials presenting
functional proper- ties strongly coupled to their crystalline structure. Here,
we report on the experimental results on epitaxial PrVO3 deposited on SrTiO3
single crystal substrates by pulsed laser deposition. By com- bining advanced
structural characterization tools, we have observed that the PVO unrelaxed film
structure grown on STO, is characterized by two kinds of oriented domains whose
epitaxial relations are: (i) PrVO3[110]o//SrTiO3[001]c and
PrVO3[001]o//SrTiO3[100]c, (ii) PrVO3[110]o//SrTiO3[001]c and
PrVO3[001]o//SrTiO3[010]c. We have also measured reciprocal space maps. From
these results, we have determined that the PVO film epitaxy on STO imposes a
lowering of the PVO structure symmetry from orthorhombic (Pbnm) to monoclinic
(P21/m). We show, the nominal strain induced by the substrate being constant,
that the obtained film structure depends on both growth oxygen and temperature.
Thus, by finely controlling the deposition conditions, we could tune the strain
experienced by PrVO3 thin film. These results show an alternative to substrate
mismatch as a path to control the strain and structure of PVO films.
