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Quantifying the critical thickness of electron hybridization in spintronics materials

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms16051 DOI Help

Authors: T. Pincelli (Istituto Officina dei Materiali-CNR; Università di Milano) , V. Lollobrigida (Istituto Officina dei Materiali-CNR; Università degli Studi Roma Tre) , F. Borgatti (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche—Istituto per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati (CNR-ISMN)) , A. Regoutz (Imperial College London) , B. Gobaut (Sincrotrone Trieste) , C. Schlueter (Diamond Light Source) , T.-L. Lee (Diamond Light Source) , D. J. Payne (Imperial College London) , M. Oura (RIKEN SPring-8 Center) , K. Tamasaku (RIKEN SPring-8 Center) , A. Y. Petrov (Istituto Officina dei Materiali-CNR) , P. Graziosi (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche—Istituto per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati (CNR-ISMN)) , F. Miletto Granozio (CNR-SPIN, Complesso Universitario Monte S. Angelo; Università ‘Federico II' di Napoli) , M. Cavallini (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche—Istituto per lo Studio dei Materiali Nanostrutturati (CNR-ISMN)) , G. Vinai (Istituto Officina dei Materiali-CNR) , R. Ciprian (Istituto Officina dei Materiali-CNR) , C. Back (Institut fur Experimentelle Physik, Universitat Regensburg) , G. Rossi (Istituto Officina dei Materiali-CNR; Università di Milano) , M. Taguchi (RIKEN SPring-8 Center; Nara Institute of Science and Technology) , H. Daimon (Nara Institute of Science and Technology) , G. Van Der Laan (Diamond Light Source) , G. Panaccione (Istituto Officina dei Materiali-CNR)
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Nature Communications , VOL 8

State: Published (Approved)
Published: July 2017
Diamond Proposal Number(s): 11322

Abstract: In the rapidly growing field of spintronics, simultaneous control of electronic and magneticproperties is essential, and the perspective of building novel phases is directly linked to the control of tuning parameters, for example, thickness and doping. Looking at the relevanteffects in interface-driven spintronics, the reduced symmetry at a surface and interface corresponds to a severe modification of the overlap of electron orbitals, that is, to a change of electron hybridization. Here we report a chemically and magnetically sensitive depth-dependent analysis of two paradigmatic systems, namely La1xSrxMnO3 and (Ga,Mn)As. Supported by cluster calculations, we find a crossover between surface and bulk in the electron hybridization/correlation and we identify a spectroscopic fingerprint of bulk metallic character and ferromagnetism versus depth. The critical thickness and the gradient of hybridization are measured, setting an intrinsic limit of 3 and 10 unit cells from the surface,respectively, for (Ga,Mn)As and La1xSrxMnO3, for fully restoring bulk properties.

Journal Keywords: Ferromagnetism; Magnetic properties and materials; Spintronics; Surfaces, interfaces and thin films

Diamond Keywords: Spintronics; Ferromagnetism

Subject Areas: Physics, Materials


Instruments: I09-Surface and Interface Structural Analysis

Added On: 18/07/2017 13:42

Documents:
ncomms16051.pdf

Discipline Tags:

Surfaces Quantum Materials Physics Electronics Magnetism Materials Science interfaces and thin films

Technical Tags:

Spectroscopy X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) Hard X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (HAXPES)