Quantifying the critical thickness of electron hybridization in spintronics materials

In the rapidly growing field of spintronics, simultaneous control of electronic and magnetic properties 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 relevant effects in interface-d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2017-07, Vol.8 (1), p.16051-16051, Article 16051
Main Authors: Pincelli, T., Lollobrigida, V., Borgatti, F., Regoutz, A., Gobaut, B., Schlueter, C., Lee, T. -L., Payne, D. J., Oura, M., Tamasaku, K., Petrov, A. Y., Graziosi, P., Granozio, F. Miletto, Cavallini, M., Vinai, G., Ciprian, R., Back, C. H., Rossi, G., Taguchi, M., Daimon, H., van der Laan, G., Panaccione, G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
140/146
639/301/119/1001
639/301/119/544
639/766/119/2793
639/925/357/997
Doping
Electron orbitals
Ferromagnetism
Humanities and Social Sciences
Hybridization
Magnetic properties
Manganese
multidisciplinary
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Spintronics
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Summary:In the rapidly growing field of spintronics, simultaneous control of electronic and magnetic properties 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 relevant effects 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 La 1− x Sr x MnO 3 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 La 1− x Sr x MnO 3 , for fully restoring bulk properties. Surface versus bulk effects in electronic structure of spintronics materials are crucial to their applications but are yet well understood. Here the authors experimentally determine the critical thickness that defines the crossover of electron hybridization between surface and bulk for two prototype spintronics materials.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/ncomms16051