Epitaxially grown thin films of LAO can serve various purposes for correlated electrons heterostructures and devices. LAO is sometimes used as an epitaxial insulator between two conductive layers. Epitaxial LAO films can be grown by several methods, most commonly by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).
LAO-STO interfaces
The most important and common use for epitaxial LAO is at the lanthanum aluminate-strontium titanate interface. In 2004, it was discovered that when 4 or more unit cells of LAO are epitaxially grown on strontium titanate (SrTiO, STO), a conductive 2-dimensional layer is formed at their interface. Individually, LaAlO and SrTiO are non-magnetic insulators, yet LaAlO/SrTiO interfaces exhibit electrical conductivity, superconductivity,
ferromagnetism, large negative in-plane magnetoresistance, and giant persistent photoconductivity.  The study of how these properties emerge at the LaAlO/SrTiO interface is a growing area of research in condensed matter physics.