Discovery of a magnetic conductive interface in PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3 /SrTiO3 heterostructures

Yi Zhang; Lin Xie; Jeongwoo Kim; Alex Stern; Hui Wang; Kui Zhang; Xingxu Yan; Linze Li; Henry Liu; Gejian Zhao; Hang Chi; Chaitanya Gadre; Qiyin Lin; Yichun Zhou; Ctirad Uher; Tingyong Chen; Ying-Hao Chu; Jing Xia; Ruqian Wu; Xiaoqing Pan

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-02914-9

Discovery of a magnetic conductive interface in PbZr_0.2Ti_0.8O₃ /SrTiO₃ heterostructures

Nat Commun. 2018 Feb 15;9(1):685. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-02914-9.

Authors

Yi Zhang¹, Lin Xie², Jeongwoo Kim³, Alex Stern³, Hui Wang³, Kui Zhang¹, Xingxu Yan¹, Linze Li¹, Henry Liu⁴, Gejian Zhao⁵, Hang Chi⁶, Chaitanya Gadre³, Qiyin Lin⁷, Yichun Zhou⁸, Ctirad Uher⁶, Tingyong Chen⁵, Ying-Hao Chu⁴, Jing Xia³, Ruqian Wu³, Xiaoqing Pan^{9

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Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.
² National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210093, China.
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, HsinChu, 30010, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, 85287, USA.
⁶ Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.
⁷ Irvine Materials Research Institute, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.
⁸ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, 411105, Hunan, China.
⁹ Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA. xiaoqing.pan@uci.edu.
¹⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA. xiaoqing.pan@uci.edu.

Abstract

Emergent physical properties often arise at interfaces of complex oxide heterostructures due to the interplay between various degrees of freedom, especially those with polar discontinuities. It is desirable to explore if these structures may generate pure and controllable spin currents, which are needed to attain unmatched performance and energy efficiency in the next-generation spintronic devices. Here we report the emergence of a spin-polarized two-dimensional electron gas (SP-2DEG) at the interface of two insulators, SrTiO₃ and PbZr_0.2Ti_0.8O₃. This SP-2DEG is strongly localized at the interfacial Ti atoms, due to the interplay between Coulomb interaction and band bending, and can be tuned by the ferroelectric polarization. Our findings open a door for engineering ferroelectric/insulator interfaces to create tunable ferroic orders for magnetoelectric device applications and provide opportunities for designing multiferroic materials in heterostructures.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't