Impact of Growth Kinetics on the Interface Morphology and Magnetization in La1/3Sr2/3FeO3/La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 Heterostructures

Published

April 17, 2020

Author(s)

M. Waschk, A. Sarkar, J. Barthel, J. Voigt, S. Schroder, P. Zakalek, M. Schmitz, Brian Kirby, S. Putter, J. Schubert, T. Bruckel

Abstract

The ability to create atomically perfect, epitaxial heterostructures of correlated complex perovskite oxides using state-of-art thin film deposition techniques has generated new physical phenomena at engineered interfaces. Here we report on the impact of growth kinetics on the magnetic structure and exchange coupling at the interface in heterostructures combining layers of antiferromagnetic La_1/2Sr_2/3FeO₃ (LSFO) and ferromagnetic La_2/3Sr_1/3MnO₃ (LSMO) on (001)-oriented SrTiO₃ (STO) substrates. Two growth orders (g.o.) are investigated, (a) LSMO/LSFO/STO(001) and (b) LSFO/LSMO/STO(001), where the LSFO layer is grown by molecular beam epitaxy and the LSMO layer by high oxygen pressure sputtering. The interface has been investigated using electron microscopy and polarized neutron reflectometry. Interdiffusion over 7 monolayers is observed in LSMO/LSFO (g.o., a) with almost 50% reduction in magnetization at the interface and showing no exchange coupling. However, the exchange bias effect (υ₀H_E=-2.35mT at 10K) could be realized when the interface is atomically sharp, as in LSFO/LSMO (g.o., b). Our study therefore reveals that, even for well ordered and lattice-matched structures, the kinetics involved in the growth processes drastically in influences the interface quality with a strong correlation to the magnetic properties.

Citation

Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter

Volume

32

Issue

16

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

Local Download

Keywords

neutron

Citation

Waschk, M. , Sarkar, A. , Barthel, J. , Voigt, J. , Schroder, S. , Zakalek, P. , Schmitz, M. , Kirby, B. , Putter, S. , Schubert, J. and Bruckel, T. (2020), Impact of Growth Kinetics on the Interface Morphology and Magnetization in La_1/3Sr_2/3FeO₃/La_2/3Sr_1/3MnO₃ Heterostructures, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=929124 (Accessed October 10, 2025)