  We report a comparative study of the properties of very thin films of
La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 grown epitaxially under strain on flat SrTiO3 (STO) and on 1
deg miscut STO. For the films on flat STO the transport properties show
well-known behavior, namely values of the metal-insulator transition
temperature which are strongly reduced with respect to the bulk value. The
reduction in films on miscut STO is significantly less strong than in films on
flat STO, even though they appear similar as to strain state. Moreover, the
residual resistance at low temperatures is lower than for the case of flat
films. Magnetically, we find reduced values of the saturation magnetization
with respect to the bulk value, indicating the presence of a dead layer in both
cases. We argue that the higher density of the step edges on the miscut
substrates lead to strain relaxation in the form of point defects and an
increased electronic bandwidth, which actually make the electronic properties
more robust.
