Lateral magnetic anisotropy modulated by antiphase domain boundaries in PrBaCo2O5+δ thin films

Abstract

Distorted oxygen octahedral structures in complex oxides induced by deformations, tilts or rotations have emerged as a well-established approach to control the physical properties of functional oxide materials. In this work, the lateral magnetic anisotropy is modulated in highly epitaxial PrBaCo2O5+δ (PBCO) thin films. Under the same growth conditions, a high density of anti-phase domain boundary (APB) defects is present in the PBCO films grown on (001)-oriented MgO substrate while less on (001)-oriented SrTiO3 substrate. The APBs break the co-corner connection between oxygen octahedra, thereby changing the lattice symmetry and leading to different lateral magnetic anisotropy, i.e., the fourfold symmetric lateral magnetic anisotropy in PBCO/MgO while twofold symmetry in PBCO/SrTiO3. Our results demonstrate that the magnetic anisotropy can be modulated through defect engineering, which can be further extended to a broader class of perovskite transition-metal oxides and pave the way for the development of correlated oxide-based magnetic spintronic devices.