Mosaic growth induced magnetic anisotropy in double perovskite PrBaCo2O5+δ thin films

Abstract

Controlling crystal structure is one of the most crucial steps for tuning the physical properties in layered perovskite oxides. The growth of mosaic-patterned double perovskite PrBaCo2O5+δ (PBCO) thin films was achieved to study the growth dynamics and the effect on the magnetic anisotropy (MA). High-resolution X-ray diffraction and scanning transmission electron microscopy studies indicate the crystal structures of PBCO thin films are highly oriented with three variants, i.e., <100>(013) grains tilted around ±18° away from [00l] direction along a or b axis, <110>(001) domains rotated 45° along c axis, and common cube-on-cube <100>(001) epitaxy. The MA transformation to isotropic and an anomalous anisotropic magnetoresistance were observed in the films with the mosaic-patterned nanostructures. These evidences not only highlight the correlation between nanostructures and physical properties in perovskite systems, but also lay out the new avenues to manipulate the MA through controlling the preferred oriented nanostructures, which paves the way to create future nanoelectronics and spintronic devices via nanostructure design.