Magnetism of the tensile-strain-induced tetragonal state of SrRuO3films

Abstract

SrRuO 3 films have been grown in the tetragonal, structurally single-domain state under 1% of biaxial tensile strain. The angular dependencies of the magnetization and the magnetoresistance reveal an upright orientation of the tetragonal unit cell and biaxial magnetic in-plane anisotropy with 110 t easy axes. Reversible biaxial strain from piezoelectric Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3 ) 0.72 Ti 0.28 O 3 (PMN-PT) substrates has been applied to probe the direct strain response of the magnetization and the electrical resistance. At 1% tensile strain, the Curie temperature (T C ) and the ordered magnetic moment (m S ) at low temperatures are found to substantially decrease with further growing tensile strain. This suggests a suppression of m S resulting from distortions of the RuO 6 octahedra, in line with reported density-functional calculations. Reversible strain has also been applied to a film under weak tensile strain revealing the opposite response, i.e., an enhancement of T C and m S with tensile strain. Structural and magnetic properties of SrRuO 3 films in several static strain states (compressive, weak and strong tensile strain) are compared.

Strain Induced Metal–Insulator Transition of Magnetic SrRuO3 Single Layer in SrRuO3/SrTiO3 Superlattice

“…In addition, the lattice constant and on-site energy of Ti play an important role in this magnetic metal-insulator transition. More importantly, our results agree well with the experimental findings in which tensile strain can affect the Curie temperature in SRO thin film [51,52].…”

“…For U Ru = 3.5 eV and U Ti = 5.0 eV (square), the T MF C decreases with increasing λ, similar to previous conclusions of the lattice effect on the SRO magnetic phase (cf. [51,52]). Precisely for λ = 0, the J 1 2.53 meV and T MF C 39.2 K. However, with λ = 1, as described in the previous paragraph, the energy difference between FM and AFM phases becomes fairly small and the T MF C is only 0.5 K with J 1 0.059 meV.…”

Strain Effect in Epitaxial Oxide Heterostructures

“…Similar to the orthorhombic phase, compressive strain causes a lower residual resistivity ratio. The observations described above are associated with the deformation rather than the tilting of RuO 6 octahedra and thus the change in effective correlation [90][91][92][93].…”

“…Along with its electrode applications, due to its high metallicity upon ferromagnetic ordering, strain engineering of SrRuO 3 has become a popular research topic among thin-film scientists. Later, it has been found that the structural, metallic, and magnetic properties of SrRuO 3 thin films are highly sensitive to the substrate-induced strain (Figure 12a) [81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92].…”

Optically and electrically co-controlled resistance switching in complex oxide heterostructures

“…11 The lattice degree of freedom in SRO films has been identified as the main factor to modify their physical properties by using external fields. For example, Herklotz et al 12 and Zhou et al 13 in situ imposed an in-plane compressive strain to SRO films epitaxially grown on the ferroelectric Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3 -PbTiO 3 single crystals via the piezoelectric response and achieved lattice strain-mediated electric-field control of magnetic and electrical properties. In addition, SRO exhibits a striking dynamic visible-light-induced lattice variation, which arises from the non-equilibrium photopopulation.…”