The coexistence and coupling of ferroelasticity and magnetic ordering in a single material offers a great opportunity to realize novel devices with multiple tuning knobs. Complex oxides are a particularly promising class of materials to find multiferroic interactions as they often possess rich phase diagrams and the interactions are very sensitive to external perturbations. Still, there are very few examples of these systems. Here we report the observation of twinning domains in ferroelastic LaCoO3 epitaxial thin films and their geometric control of structural symmetry that are intimately linked to the material electronic and magnetic states. A unidirectional structural modulation is achieved by selective choice of substrates possessing two-fold rotational symmetry. This modulation perturbs the crystal field splitting energy, leading to unexpected in plane anisotropy of orbital configuration and magnetization. These findings demonstrate the utilization of structural modulation to control multiferroic interactions and may enable a great potential for stimulation of exotic phenomena through artificial domain engineering.
@article{arxiv.1902.00162,
title = {Nanoscale ferroelastic twins formed in strained LaCoO3 films},
author = {Er-Jia Guo and Ryan Desautels and David Keavney and Manue A. Roldan and Brian J. Kirby and Dongkyu Lee and Zhaoliang Liao and Timothy Charlton and Andreas Herklotz and T. Zac Ward and Michael R. Fitzsimmons and Ho Nyung Lee},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1902.00162},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
24 pages, 4 figures, and one supporting information (10 figures); accepted for publication in Science Advances