Strain-induced magnetic phase transition in SrCoO${}_{3-\delta }$ thin films

Abstract

It has been well established that both in bulk at ambient pressure and for films under modest strains, cubic SrCoO${}_{3-\delta }$ ($\delta <0.2$) is a ferromagnetic metal. Recent theoretical work, however, indicates that a magnetic phase transition to an antiferromagnetic structure could occur under large strain accompanied by a metal-insulator transition. We have observed a strain-induced ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic phase transition in SrCoO${}_{3-\delta }$ films grown on DyScO${}_3$ substrates, which provide a large tensile epitaxial strain, as compared to ferromagnetic films under lower tensile strain on SrTiO${}_3$ substrates. Magnetometry results demonstrate the existence of antiferromagnetic spin correlations and neutron diffraction experiments provide a direct evidence for a G-type antiferromagnetic structure with Neél temperatures between $T_N\sim 135\pm 10K$ and $\sim 325\pm 10K$ depending on the oxygen content of the samples. Therefore, our data experimentally confirm the predicted strain-induced magnetic phase transition to an antiferromagnetic state for SrCoO${}_{3-\delta }$ thin films under large epitaxial strain.

6 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (1)

• The spin state transition in LaCoO${}_3$; revising a revision

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Structural, transport, optical and electronic properties of Sr${}_2$CoNbO${}_6$ thin films
• Revisiting the zero-temperature phase diagram of stoichiometric SrCoO3 with first-principles methods