Interfacial-hybridization-modified Ir Ferromagnetism and Electronic Structure in LaMnO$_3$/SrIrO$_3$ Superlattices
Abstract
Artificially fabricated 3/5 superlattices (SLs) involve both strong electron correlation and spin-orbit coupling in one material by means of interfacial 3-5 coupling, whose mechanism remains mostly unexplored. In this work we investigated the mechanism of interfacial coupling in LaMnO/SrIrO SLs by several spectroscopic approaches. Hard x-ray absorption, magnetic circular dichroism and photoemission spectra evidence the systematic change of the Ir ferromagnetism and the electronic structure with the change of the SL repetition period. First-principles calculations further reveal the mechanism of the SL-period dependence of the interfacial electronic structure and the local properties of the Ir moments, confirming that the formation of Ir-Mn molecular orbital is responsible for the interfacial coupling effects. The SL-period dependence of the ratio between spin and orbital components of the Ir magnetic moments can be attributed to the realignment of electron spin during the formation of the interfacial molecular orbital. Our results clarify the nature of interfacial coupling in this prototypical 3/5 SL system and the conclusion will shed light on the study of other strongly correlated and spin-orbit coupled oxide hetero-interfaces.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2004.06864,
title = {Interfacial-hybridization-modified Ir Ferromagnetism and Electronic Structure in LaMnO$_3$/SrIrO$_3$ Superlattices},
author = {Yujun Zhang and Yong Zheng Luo and Liang Wu and Motohiro Suzuki and Yasuyuki Hirata and Kohei Yamagami and Kou Takubo and Keisuke Ikeda and Kohei Yamamoto and Akira Yasui and Naomi Kawamura and Chun Lin and Keisuke Koshiishi and Xin Liu and Jinxing Zhang and Yasushi Hotta and X. Renshaw Wang and Atsushi Fujimori and Yuanhua Lin and Cewen Nan and Lei Shen and Hiroki Wadati},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.06864},
year = {2020}
}