Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering study of bond order and spin excitations in nickelate thin-film structures

Abstract

We used high-resolution resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) at the Ni $L_3$ edge to simultaneously investigate high-energy interband transitions characteristic of Ni-O bond ordering and low-energy collective excitations of the Ni spins in the rare-earth nickelates $R$NiO${}_3$ ($R$ = Nd, Pr, La) with pseudocubic perovskite structure. With the support of calculations based on a double-cluster model we quantify bond order (BO) amplitudes for different thin films and heterostructures and discriminate short-range BO fluctuations from long-range static order. Moreover we investigate magnetic order and exchange interactions in spatially confined $R$NiO${}_3$ slabs by probing dispersive magnon excitations. While our study of superlattices (SLs) grown in the (001) direction of the perovskite structure reveals a robust non-collinear spin spiral magnetic order with dispersive magnon excitations that are essentially unperturbed by BO modulations and spatial confinement, we find magnons with flat dispersions and strongly reduced energies in SLs grown in the $(111{)}_{\text{pc}}$ direction that exhibit collinear magnetic order. These results give insight into the interplay of different collective ordering phenomena in a prototypical 3$d$ transition metal oxide and establish RIXS as a powerful tool to quantitatively study several order parameters and the corresponding collective excitations within one experiment.

arXiv comment13 pages, 8 figures, accepted in Physical Review B

References in corpus (45)

• Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering Studies of Elementary Excitations
• Linear spin wave theory for single-Q incommensurate magnetic structures
• Multiplet ligand-field theory using Wannier orbitals
• Multiferroicity due to charge ordering
• Orbital order and possible superconductivity in LaNiO3/LaMO3 superlattices
• Dimensionality Control of Electronic Phase Transitions in Nickel-Oxide Superlattices
• Site-selective Mott transition in rare earth nickelates
• Physics of ultrathin films and heterostructures of rare earth nickelates
• Ground state oxygen holes and the metal-insulator transition in the negative charge transfer rare-earth nickelates
• Turning a nickelate Fermi surface into a cuprate-like one through heterostructuring
• Charge disproportionation without charge transfer in the rare-earth nickelates as a possible mechanism for the metal-insulator transition
• Orbital reflectometry
• Efficient real frequency solver for dynamical mean field theory
• Spin and charge ordering in self-doped Mott insulators
• Resonant X-rays at the Cu L-edge as a momentum dependent probe of the magnetic excitation spectrum in cuprates
• Energy and symmetry of $dd$ excitations in undoped layered cuprates measured by Cu $L_3$ resonant inelastic x-ray scattering
• Antiferromagnetic correlations in the metallic strongly correlated transition metal oxide LaNiO${}_3$
• Reconciling the ionic and covalent pictures in rare-earth nickelates
• Bond disproportionation and dynamical charge fluctuations in the perovskite rare earth nickelates
• Role of magnetic and orbital ordering at the metal-insulator transition in NdNiO3
• Low-energy description of the metal-insulator transition in the rare-earth nickelates
• Orbital control of noncollinear magnetic order in nickelate heterostructures
• Strain and composition dependence of the orbital polarization in nickelate superlattices
• Bands, resonances, edge singularities and excitons in core level spectroscopy investigated within the dynamical mean field theory
• Multiferroicity in rare-earth nickelates RNiO3
• Tunable Charge and Spin Order in PrNiO${}_3$ Thin Films and Superlattices
• Landau theory of charge and spin ordering in the nickelates
• Strain-mediated metal-insulator transition in epitaxial ultra-thin films of NdNiO3
• Theory of the magnetic and metal-insulator transitions in RNiO3 bulk and layered structures
• Metal-insulator transition in a two-band model for the perovskite nickelates
• Spin-orbit induced mixed-spin ground state in $R$NiO${}_3$ perovskites probed by XAS: new insight into the metal to insulator transition
• Tailoring the electronic transitions of NdNiO_3 films through (111)_pc oriented interfaces
• Oxygen holes and hybridization in the bismuthates
• Momentum dependence of orbital excitations in Mott-insulating titanates
• Interplay between breathing mode distortion and magnetic order in rare-earth nickelates $R$NiO${}_3$ within DFT+$U$
• Complex magnetic order in nickelate slabs
• Quantitative determination of bond order and lattice distortions in nickel oxide heterostructures by resonant x-ray scattering
• Latent Instabilities in Metallic LaNiO3 Films by Strain Control of Fermi-Surface Topology
• Site-selective Probe of Magnetic Excitations in Rare-earth Nickelates using Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering
• Continuum Charge Excitations in High-Valence Transition-Metal Oxides Revealed by Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering
• Orbital engineering in nickelate heterostructures driven by anisotropic oxygen hybridization rather than orbital energy levels
• Orbital superexchange and crystal field simultaneously at play in YVO3: resonant inelastic x-ray scattering at the V L edge and the O K edge
• Impact of antiferromagnetism on the optical properties of rare earth nickelates
• Bond-Order and the Role of Ligand States in Stripe-Modulated IrTe2
• Origins of bond and spin order in rare-earth nickelate bulk and heterostructures

Cited by in corpus (8)

• RENiO3 single crystals (RE = Nd, Sm, Gd, Dy, Y, Ho, Er, Lu) grown from molten salts under 2000 bar oxygen-gas pressure
• Soft X-ray Spectroscopy of Low-Valence Nickelates
• X-ray spectroscopy of rare-earth nickelate LuNiO${}_3$: LDA+DMFT study
• Control of the metal-insulator transition in NdNiO${}_3$ thin films through the interplay between structural and electronic properties
• Negative charge transfer energy in correlated compounds
• Probing photo-induced rearrangements in the NdNiO${}_3$ magnetic spiral with polarization-sensitive ultrafast resonant soft x-ray scattering
• Effects of reduced dimensionality, crystal field, electron-lattice coupling, and strain on the ground-state of a rare-earth nickelates monolayer
• Magnetic excitations in Nd${}_{n+1}$Ni${}_n$O${}_{3n+1}$ Ruddlesden-Popper nickelates observed via resonant inelastic x-ray scattering