Long-range magnetic coupling across a polar insulating layer.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26980456.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms11015 and PMC identifier 4799368.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Magnetic interactions in solids are normally mediated by short-range exchange or weak dipole fields. Here we report a magnetic interaction that can propagate over long distances (∼10 nm) across a polar insulating oxide spacer. Evidence includes oscillations of magnetization, coercivity and field-cooled loop shift with the thickness of LaAlO3 in La0.67Sr0.33MnO3/LaAlO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures. Similar modifications of the hysteresis loop appear when two coupled films of La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 are separated by LaAlO3, or another polar insulator, but they are absent when the oxide spacer layer is nonpolar. The loop shift is attributed to strong spin-orbit coupling and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction at the interfaces. There is evidence from inelastic light scattering that the polar spacer mediates long-range transmission of orbital magnetization. This coupling mechanism is expected to apply for any conducting ferromagnetic oxide with mixed valence; in view of electron hopping frequency involved, it raises the prospect of terahertz tunability of magnetic coupling.