Magnetoelectric phase transition driven by interfacial-engineered Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

Xin Liu; Wenjie Song; Mei Wu; Yuben Yang; Ying Yang; Peipei Lu; Yinhua Tian; Yuanwei Sun; Jingdi Lu; Jing Wang; Dayu Yan; Youguo Shi; Nian Xiang Sun; Young Sun; Peng Gao; Ka Shen; Guozhi Chai; Supeng Kou; Ce-Wen Nan; Jinxing Zhang

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-25759-1

Magnetoelectric phase transition driven by interfacial-engineered Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

Nat Commun. 2021 Sep 15;12(1):5453. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-25759-1.

Authors

Xin Liu^#¹, Wenjie Song^#², Mei Wu^#^{3

4}, Yuben Yang^#¹, Ying Yang¹, Peipei Lu^{5

6}, Yinhua Tian², Yuanwei Sun^{3

4}, Jingdi Lu¹, Jing Wang^{7

8}, Dayu Yan⁵, Youguo Shi⁵, Nian Xiang Sun⁹, Young Sun^{5

6}, Peng Gao^{10

11

12}, Ka Shen¹, Guozhi Chai², Supeng Kou¹, Ce-Wen Nan¹³, Jinxing Zhang¹⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, Beijing Normal University, 100875, Beijing, PR China.
² Key Laboratory for Magnetism and Magnetic Materials of the Ministry of Education, Lanzhou University, 730000, Lanzhou, PR China.
³ International Center for Quantum Materials, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, PR China.
⁴ Electron Microscopy Laboratory, School of Physics, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, PR China.
⁵ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100190, Beijing, PR China.
⁶ School of Physical Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100190, Beijing, PR China.
⁷ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, PR China.
⁸ Advanced Research Institute of Multidisciplinary Science, Beijing Institute of Technology, 100081, Beijing, PR China.
⁹ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, 02115, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁰ International Center for Quantum Materials, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, PR China. p-gao@pku.edu.cn.
¹¹ Electron Microscopy Laboratory, School of Physics, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, PR China. p-gao@pku.edu.cn.
¹² Collaborative Innovation Centre of Quantum Matter, 100871, Beijing, PR China. p-gao@pku.edu.cn.
¹³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, PR China. cwnan@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
¹⁴ Department of Physics, Beijing Normal University, 100875, Beijing, PR China. jxzhang@bnu.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Strongly correlated oxides with a broken symmetry could exhibit various phase transitions, such as superconductivity, magnetism and ferroelectricity. Construction of superlattices using these materials is effective to design crystal symmetries at atomic scale for emergent orderings and phases. Here, antiferromagnetic Ruddlesden-Popper Sr₂IrO₄ and perovskite paraelectric (ferroelectric) SrTiO₃ (BaTiO₃) are selected to epitaxially fabricate superlattices for symmetry engineering. An emergent magnetoelectric phase transition is achieved in Sr₂IrO₄/SrTiO₃ superlattices with artificially designed ferroelectricity, where an observable interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction driven by non-equivalent interface is considered as the microscopic origin. By further increasing the polarization namely interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction via replacing SrTiO₃ with BaTiO₃, the transition temperature can be enhanced from 46 K to 203 K, accompanying a pronounced magnetoelectric coefficient of ~495 mV/cm·Oe. This interfacial engineering of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction provides a strategy to design quantum phases and orderings in correlated electron systems.