Epitaxial growth and antiferromagnetism of Sn-substituted perovskite iridate $\mathrm{SrI}{\mathrm{r}}_{0.8}\mathrm{S}{\mathrm{n}}_{0.2}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$

Epitaxial growth and antiferromagnetism of Sn-substituted perovskite iridate $SrI r_{0.8} S n_{0.2} O_{3}$

Junyi Yang, Lin Hao, Qi Cui, Jiaqi Lin, Lukas Horak, Xuerong Liu, Lu Zhang, Huaixin Yang, Jenia Karapetrova, Jong-Woo Kim, Philip J. Ryan, Mark P. M. Dean, Jinguang Cheng, and Jian Liu

Phys. Rev. Materials 3, 124411 – Published 24 December 2019

Abstract

$5 d$ iridates have shown vast emergent phenomena due to a strong interplay among their lattice, charge, and spin degrees of freedom, because of which the potential in spintronic application of the thin-film form is highly leveraged. Here we have epitaxially stabilized perovskite $SrI r_{0.8} S n_{0.2} O_{3}$ on [001] $SrTi O_{3}$ substrates through pulsed laser deposition and systematically characterized the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties. Physical property measurements unravel an insulating ground state with a weak ferromagnetism in the compressively strained epitaxial film. The octahedral rotation pattern is identified by synchrotron x-ray diffraction, resolving a mix of $a^{+} b^{-} c^{-}$ and $a^{-} b^{+} c^{-}$ domains. X-ray magnetic resonant scattering directly demonstrates a G-type antiferromagnetic structure of the magnetic order and the spin canting nature of the weak ferromagnetism.

Received 16 September 2019
Revised 23 November 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.124411

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Antiferromagnetism Spin-orbit coupling

Iridates Perovskites Thin films

Resonant elastic x-ray scattering

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Junyi Yang ^1,*, Lin Hao ^1,†, Qi Cui^2,3, Jiaqi Lin ⁴, Lukas Horak⁵, Xuerong Liu⁶, Lu Zhang², Huaixin Yang^2,3,7, Jenia Karapetrova⁸, Jong-Woo Kim⁸, Philip J. Ryan⁸, Mark P. M. Dean ⁴, Jinguang Cheng ^2,3,7, and Jian Liu^1,‡

¹Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA
²Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
³School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
⁴Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA
⁵Department of Condensed Matter Physics, Charles University, Ke Karlovu 5, 121 16 Prague, Czech Republic
⁶School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, China
⁷Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan, Guangdong 523808, China
⁸Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA