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Tuning magnetic anisotropy by interfacially engineering the oxygen coordination environment in a transition metal oxide

Nature Materials volume 15, pages 432–437 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Strong correlations between electrons, spins and lattices—stemming from strong hybridization between transition metal d and oxygen p orbitals—are responsible for the functional properties of transition metal oxides. Artificial oxide heterostructures with chemically abrupt interfaces provide a platform for engineering bonding geometries that lead to emergent phenomena. Here we demonstrate the control of the oxygen coordination environment of the perovskite, SrRuO3, by heterostructuring it with Ca0.5Sr0.5TiO3 (0–4 monolayers thick) grown on a GdScO3 substrate. We found that a Ru–O–Ti bond angle of the SrRuO3 /Ca0.5Sr0.5TiO3 interface can be engineered by layer-by-layer control of the Ca0.5Sr0.5TiO3 layer thickness, and that the engineered Ru–O–Ti bond angle not only stabilizes a Ru–O–Ru bond angle never seen in bulk SrRuO3, but also tunes the magnetic anisotropy in the entire SrRuO3 layer. The results demonstrate that interface engineering of the oxygen coordination environment allows one to control additional degrees of freedom in functional oxide heterostructures.

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Figure 1: Structural characterizations of SRO/CSTO_n/GSO heterostructures (n: number of monolayers in the CSTO layer).
Figure 2: Atomic-level characterization of the oxygen coordination environments (oxygen octahedral distortions) in SRO/CSTO_n/GSO heterostructures.
Figure 3: Magneto-transport properties of the SRO/CSTO_n/GSO heterostructures.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) programme of the Japan Science and Technology Agency. The work was also supported by a grant for the Joint Project of Chemical Synthesis Core Research Institutions from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Uji, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan

    Daisuke Kan, Ryotaro Aso, Riko Sato, Mitsutaka Haruta, Hiroki Kurata & Yuichi Shimakawa

  2. Japan Science and Technology Agency, CREST, Uji, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan

    Yuichi Shimakawa

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  1. Daisuke Kan
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Contributions

D.K. conceived the idea and initiated the project. D.K. and R.S. fabricated the samples and performed X-ray structural characterization and transport measurements. R.A. and M.H. collected and analysed the STEM data. H.K. and Y.S. supervised the project. All authors discussed the experimental data and co-wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Daisuke Kan.

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Kan, D., Aso, R., Sato, R. et al. Tuning magnetic anisotropy by interfacially engineering the oxygen coordination environment in a transition metal oxide. Nature Mater 15, 432–437 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4580

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