Revealing out-of-equilibrium hidden phases in Sr3Ru2O7 by applying stress

Abstract

We predict that the application of biaxial tensile strain will uncover an antiferromagnetic metallic hidden phase in ${\mathrm{Sr}}_{3}{\mathrm{Ru}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{7}$. By using hybrid density functional theory we applied uniaxial and biaxial strains and identified a variety of phases. We found that tensile strain can reduce by up to half the stress needed to expose hidden phases compared to the use of uniaxial compressive strain. In addition, our results demonstrate that while elongation and compression of the octahedra induce magnetic phase transitions, tilting of the octahedra leads to a metal-to-insulator transition, indicating that the different hidden phases can be accessed by applying strain.