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Oxide interfaces

Moment of magnetism

Nature Physics volume 7, pages 749–750 (2011)Cite this article

Electrons at an interface between two insulating oxides are now shown to exhibit ferromagnetism — a collective electronic state not seen in the bulk of either individual oxide.

An interface between two different insulating materials may sustain electrons that are confined to the interface region but able to move along it. Adding carriers to insulating transition-metal oxides can produce remarkable collective electronic effects, such as high-temperature superconductivity and 'colossal' magnetoresistance. Thus, an electron gas formed at an appropriately designed oxide interface could have interesting, controllable and perhaps useful collective electronic properties1. This goal is far off, but a set of papers — including two published in Nature Physics, by Li et al.2 and Bert et al.3 — suggest that the field has passed a crucial milestone, namely the creation, at an interface, of a state with collective electronic properties not found in bulk samples of either component material.

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  1. Andrew J. Millis is in the Department of Physics, Columbia University, 538 West 120th Street, New York, New York 10027, USA,

    Andrew J. Millis

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  1. Andrew J. Millis
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Correspondence to Andrew J. Millis.

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Millis, A. Moment of magnetism. Nature Phys 7, 749–750 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2087

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