Magnetic domain engineering in SrRuO3 thin films

Wenbo Wang,Yaoyao Ji,Lin Li,Yalin Lu,Guus Rijnders,Binbin Chen,Gertjan Koster,Junhua Liu,Jun Wang,Weida Wu,Guanglei Cheng,Zhaoliang Liao

doi:10.1038/s41535-020-00275-5

Abstract

Magnetic domain engineering in ferromagnetic thin films is a very important route toward the rational design of spintronics and memory devices. Although the magnetic domain formation has been extensively studied, artificial control of magnetic domain remains challenging. Here, we present the control of magnetic domain formation in paradigmatic SrRuO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures via structural domain engineering. The formation of structural twin domains in SrRuO3 films can be well controlled by breaking the SrTiO3 substrate symmetry through engineering miscut direction. The combination of x-ray diffraction analysis of structural twin domains and magnetic imaging of reversal process demonstrates a one-to-one correspondence between structural domains and magnetic domains, which results in multi-step magnetization switching and anomalous Hall effect in films with twin domains. Our work sheds light on the control of the magnetic domain formation via structural domain engineering, which will pave a path toward desired properties and devices applications.

Highlights

A wide range of perovskite oxide heterostructures provide a fertile playground for discovering emergent properties owing to their diverse capabilities to tune delicate coupling between spin, charge, and orbital degrees of freedom[1,2,3]
The key feature of the lattice of ABO3 perovskite is the corners shared three-dimensional network of BO6 octahedra where the lattice symmetry of a perovskite resides in
No matter what kinds of rotation patterns, they all share quite similar pseudocubic lattice with B site sitting in the center of oxygen octahedra and A site at the hole surrounded by eight octahedra to form ABO3 stoichiometry

Summary

Introduction

A wide range of perovskite oxide heterostructures provide a fertile playground for discovering emergent properties owing to their diverse capabilities to tune delicate coupling between spin, charge, and orbital degrees of freedom[1,2,3]. By controlling the formation of twin domains through breaking the STO fourfold symmetry via exposing either (010) or (100) facets at substrate step edge (see Fig. 1b), we found that the transport and magnetic properties are strongly influenced by domain structures. Different structural domains within the SRO films have different magnetization reversal behaviors, resulting in multiple-step anomalous Hall effect (AHE).

Results

Conclusion