Critical thickness and orbital ordering in ultrathin La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 films

By M. Huijben, L. W. Martin, Y. Chu, M. Holcomb, P. Yu, G. Rijnders, D. H. Blank, Ramamoorthy Ramesh. 2008

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Detailed analysis of transport, magnetism, and x-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements on ultrathin La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 films with thicknesses from 3 to 70 unit cells resulted in the identification of a lower critical thickness for a nonmetallic nonferromagnetic layer at the interface with the SrTiO3 (001) substrate of only three unit cells (~12 A). Furthermore, linear-dichroism measurements demonstrate the presence of a preferred (x2-y2) in-plane orbital ordering for all layer thicknesses without any orbital reconstruction at the interface. A crucial requirement for the accurate study of these ultrathin films is a controlled growth process, offering the coexistence of layer-by-layer growth and bulklike magnetic/transport properties.

Subfields: Condensed Matter Physics, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aeaf2dece74355af149651338a86836340c72877