Tuning the competition between ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism in a half-doped manganite through magnetoelectric coupling

Journal Article · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2013 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.127601· OSTI ID:1093742

Yi, Di ^[1]; Liu, Jian ^[2]; Okamoto, Satoshi ^[3]; Jagannatha, Suresha ^[4]; Chen, Yi-Chun ^[5]; Yu, Pu ^[6]; Chu, Ying-Hao ^[7]; Arenholz, Elke ^[4]; Ramesh, Ramamoorthy ^[8]

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1. University of California
2. University of California, Berkeley & LBNL
3. ORNL
4. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)
5. National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
6. Tsinghua University
7. National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
8. University of California, Berkeley

We investigate the possibility of controlling the magnetic phase transition of the heterointerface between a half-doped manganite La0:5Ca0:5MnO3 and a multiferroic BiFeO3 (BFO) through magnetoelectric coupling. Using macroscopic magnetometry and element-selective x-ray magnetic circular dichroism at the Mn and Fe L edges, we discover that the ferroelectric polarization of BFO controls simultaneously the magnetization of BFO and La0.5Ca0.5MnO3 (LCMO). X-ray absorption spectra at the oxygen K edge and linear dichroism at the Mn L edge suggest that the interfacial coupling is mainly derived from the superexchange between Mn and Fe t2g spins. The combination of x-ray absorption spectroscopy and mean-field theory calculations reveals that the d-electron modulation of Mn cations changes the magnetic coupling in LCMO, which controls the enhanced canted moments of interfacial BFO via the interfacial coupling. Our results demonstrate that the competition between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic instability can be modulated by an electric field at the heterointerface, providing another pathway for the electrical field control of magnetism.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: DE-AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1093742
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 111, Issue 12; ISSN 0031--9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

oxide heterostructures
magnetism