Reversible manipulation of the magnetic state in SrRuO<sub>3</sub> through electric-field controlled proton evolution.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31924767.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-13999-1 and PMC identifier 6954193.
- 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
Ionic substitution forms an essential pathway to manipulate the structural phase, carrier density and crystalline symmetry of materials via ion-electron-lattice coupling, leading to a rich spectrum of electronic states in strongly correlated systems. Using the ferromagnetic metal SrRuO<sub>3</sub> as a model system, we demonstrate an efficient and reversible control of both structural and electronic phase transformations through the electric-field controlled proton evolution with ionic liquid gating. The insertion of protons results in a large structural expansion and increased carrier density, leading to an exotic ferromagnetic to paramagnetic phase transition. Importantly, we reveal a novel protonated compound of HSrRuO<sub>3</sub> with paramagnetic metallic as ground state. We observe a topological Hall effect at the boundary of the phase transition due to the proton concentration gradient across the film-depth. We envision that electric-field controlled protonation opens up a pathway to explore novel electronic states and material functionalities in protonated material systems.