Inducing ferromagnetism by structural engineering in a strongly spin-orbit coupled oxide

Abstract

Magnetic materials with strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC) are essential for the advancement of spin-orbitronic devices, as they enable efficient spin-charge conversion, complex magnetic structures, spin-valley physics, topological phases and other exotic phenomena. 5d transition-metal oxides such as SrIrO3 feature large SOC, but usually show paramagnetic behavior due to broad bands and a low density of states at the Fermi level, accompanied by a relatively low Coulomb repulsion. Here, we unveil ferromagnetism in 5d SrIrO3 thin films grown on SrTiO3 (111). Through substrate-induced structural engineering, a zigzag stacking of three-unit-cell thick layers along the [111] direction is achieved, stabilizing a ferromagnetic state at the interfaces. Magnetotransport measurements reveal an anomalous Hall effect below ~30 K and hysteresis in the Hall conductivity below 7 K, indicating ferromagnetic ordering. X-ray magnetic circular dichroism further supports these results. Theoretical analysis suggests that the structural engineering of the IrO6 octahedral network enhances the density of states at the Fermi level and thus stabilizes Stoner ferromagnetism. This work highlights the potential of structurally engineered 5d oxides for spin-orbitronic devices, where efficient control of SOC-induced magnetic phases by electric currents can lead to lower energy consumption and improved performance in next-generation device technologies.

References in corpus (25)

• Restoring the density-gradient expansion for exchange in solids and surfaces
• Generalized gradient approximation for solids and their surfaces
• Anomalous Hall effect
• Spin-Orbit Physics Giving Rise to Novel Phases in Correlated Systems: Iridates and Related Materials
• Large Unidirectional Magnetoresistance in a Magnetic Topological Insulator
• Engineering spin-orbital magnetic insulator by tailoring superlattices
• Fundamental thickness limit of itinerant ferromagnetic SrRuO${}_3$ thin films
• Oxide spin-orbitronics: spin-charge interconversion and topological spin textures
• Metal insulator transitions in perovskite SrIrO3 thin films
• Spin-orbit semimetal SrIrO${}_3$ in the two-dimensional limit
• Perspectives of Electrically generated spin currents in ferromagnetic materials
• Non-Fermi-liquid behavior in nearly ferromagnetic metallic SrIrO3 single crystals
• Dimensionality-driven metal-insulator-transition in spin-orbit coupled SrIrO${}_3$
• Experimental Verification of Comparability between Spin-Orbit and Spin-Diffusion Lengths
• The nature of Itinerant Ferromagnetism of SrRuO3 : A DFT+DMFT Study
• Coexistence of Bound and Virtual-bound States in Shallow-core to Valence Spectroscopies
• Balanced electron-hole transport in spin-orbit semimetal SrIrO3 heterostructures
• Coupling lattice instabilities across the interface in ultrathin oxide heterostructures
• Covalency-driven collapse of strong spin-orbit coupling in face-sharing iridium octahedra
• Transition-Metal Oxide (111) bilayers
• Gigantic Anisotropy of Self-Induced Spin-Orbit Torque in Weyl Ferromagnet Co2MnGa
• Spin-orbit interaction in InAs/GaSb heterostructures quantified by weak antilocalization
• A simple model for $f\to d$ transition of heavy lanthanide and actinide ions in crystals
• Magnetotransport of SrIrO3 films on (110) DyScO3
• Sharp steps in magnetization, magnetoresistance and magnetostriction in Pr0.6Sr0.4Co1-yGayO3