Magnetism in iridate heterostructures leveraged by structural distortions
Abstract
Fundamental control of magnetic coupling through heterostructure morphology is a prerequisite for rational engineering of magnetic ground states. We report the tuning of magnetic interactions in superlattices composed of single and bilayers of SrIrO3 inter-spaced with SrTiO3 in analogy to the Ruddlesden-Popper series iridates. Magnetic scattering shows predominately c-axis antiferromagnetic orientation of the magnetic moments for the bilayer, as in Sr3Ir2O7. However, the magnetic excitation gap, measured by resonant inelastic x-ray scattering, is quite different between the two structures, evidencing a significant change in the stability of the competing magnetic phases. In contrast, the single layer iridate hosts a more bulk-like gap. We find these changes are driven by bending of the c-axis Ir-O-Ir bond, which is much weaker in the single layer, and subsequent local environment changes, evidenced through x-ray diffraction and magnetic excitation modeling. Our findings demonstrate how large changes in the magnetic interactions can be tailored and probed in spin-orbit coupled heterostructures by engineering subtle structural modulations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Mar 12, 2019
- Source ID
- 10.1038/s41598-019-39422-9
Entities
People
- Christina Frederick
- D Meyers
- D. Casa
- D. Haskel
- E. Karapetrova
- G. Fabbris
- Jeremy Yang
- Jian Liu
- Jiaqi Lin
- Jong-woo Kim
- Lin Hao
- Lukas Horak
- Mark P. M. Dean
- Mary Upton
- N. Traynor
- Neil J. Robinson
- Philip J. Ryan
- T. Gög
- X. Liu
- Yongseong Choi
- Yue Cao
Organizations
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China
- United States Department of Defense
- United States Department of Energy