Emergent ferromagnetism with tunable perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in short-periodic SrIrO3/SrRuO3 superlattices

作者：Ze-Ting Zeng, Jiatai Feng, Xuan Zheng, Cuihong Wang, Chen Liu, Zengxing Lu, Feng-Xian Jiang, Xiaohong Xu, Zhiming Wang, Run‐Wei Li · 发表于：Applied Physics Letters · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.1063/1.5144643 · 被引用次数：18 · 研究领域：Advanced Condensed Matter Physics、Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials、Electronic and Structural Properties of Oxides

Interface engineering is a promising method to trigger emergent magnetic order in oxide heterostructures. Here, we report on the electrical and magnetic properties of short-periodic superlattices (SLs) (SrIrO3)n/(SrRuO3)n (n = 1–5) epitaxially grown on the (001)-oriented SrTiO3 substrate. Intriguingly, (SrIrO3)n/(SrRuO3)n superlattices show itinerant ferromagnetism with recovered Curie temperature and magnetic moment in spite of both individual components being antiferromagnetic insulators in ultrathin films (n ⩽ 3). Moreover, perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) is observed and can be tuned by the layer thickness n in the superlattices. Enhanced PMA as high as 1.6×106 erg/cm3 is obtained in the n = 1 superlattice, which is considerably higher compared to that in n = 4 and 5 SLs. Our systematic thickness-dependent studies reveal that the (SrIrO3)/(SrRuO3) interface plays a crucial role in both electrical and magnetic properties. These results indicate n as a knob to tune the PMA of superlattices, paving a way to design functional materials in transition metal oxides.