Continuous tunable lateral magnetic anisotropy in La0.67Ca0.33MnO3/SrRuO3 superlattices by stacking period-modulation

Lili Qu; Da Lan; Kexuan Zhang; Enda Hua; Binghui Ge; Liqiang Xu; Feng Jin; Guanyin Gao; Lingfei Wang; Wenbin Wu

doi:10.1063/5.0052109

AIP Advances (Jul 2021)

Continuous tunable lateral magnetic anisotropy in La0.67Ca0.33MnO3/SrRuO3 superlattices by stacking period-modulation

Lili Qu,
Da Lan,
Kexuan Zhang,
Enda Hua,
Binghui Ge,
Liqiang Xu,
Feng Jin,
Guanyin Gao,
Lingfei Wang,
Wenbin Wu

Affiliations

Lili Qu: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
Da Lan: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
Kexuan Zhang: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
Enda Hua: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
Binghui Ge: Institutes of Physical Science and Information Technology, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China
Liqiang Xu: Institutes of Physical Science and Information Technology, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China
Feng Jin: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
Guanyin Gao: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
Lingfei Wang: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
Wenbin Wu: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0052109
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 11, no. 7
pp. 075001 – 075001-7

Abstract

Read online

Effective control of magnetic anisotropy is important for developing spintronic devices. In this work, we performed a case study of stacking periods (N)-mediated reorientation of lateral magnetic anisotropy in ultrathin La0.67Ca0.33MnO3/SrRuO3 superlattices. As N increases from 1 to 15, the magnetic easy-axis switches from the orthorhombic [010] to [100]-axis. The maximum anisotropy constant of the superlattice (SL) (N = 15) reaches −1.83 × 105 erg/cm3. X-ray absorption spectroscopy and x-ray linear dichroism further suggest that the observed changes in lateral magnetic anisotropy are driven by in-plane orbital polarization. For SLs with small N, anisotropic strain-induced orbital polarization along the b-axis can result in the [010]-oriented magnetic easy axis. For SLs with large N, the dimension crossover from 2-dimension to 3-dimension could enhance the hybridization of Ru t2g and Mn dx2−y2 orbitals, which can compete with the strain effect and switch the magnetic easy axis to [100]. Our results suggest a potential strategy for engineering magnetic anisotropy through the cooperation of strain engineering and interfacial orbital engineering.

Published in AIP Advances

ISSN: 2158-3226 (Online)
Publisher: AIP Publishing LLC
Country of publisher: United States
LCC subjects: Science: Physics
Website: http://aipadvances.aip.org/

About the journal