Extreme tensile strain states in La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 membranes

Seung Sae Hong; Mingqiang Gu; Manish Verma; Varun Harbola; Bai Yang Wang; Di Lu; Arturas Vailionis; Yasuyuki Hikita; Rossitza Pentcheva; James M Rondinelli; Harold Y Hwang

doi:10.1126/science.aax9753

Extreme tensile strain states in La_0.7Ca_0.3MnO₃ membranes

Science. 2020 Apr 3;368(6486):71-76. doi: 10.1126/science.aax9753. Epub 2020 Apr 2.

Authors

Seung Sae Hong^{1

2

3}, Mingqiang Gu^{4

5}, Manish Verma⁶, Varun Harbola^{2

7}, Bai Yang Wang^{2

7}, Di Lu^{2

4

7}, Arturas Vailionis^{8

9}, Yasuyuki Hikita², Rossitza Pentcheva⁶, James M Rondinelli⁴, Harold Y Hwang^{10

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. sshong@ucdavis.edu.
² Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA.
³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
⁵ Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China.
⁶ Department of Physics and Center for Nanointegration (CENIDE), University of Duisburg-Essen, 47053 Duisburg, Germany.
⁷ Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
⁸ Stanford Nano Shared Facilities, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
⁹ Department of Physics, Kaunas University of Technology, LT-51368 Kaunas, Lithuania.
¹⁰ Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

PMID: 32241944
DOI: 10.1126/science.aax9753

Abstract

A defining feature of emergent phenomena in complex oxides is the competition and cooperation between ground states. In manganites, the balance between metallic and insulating phases can be tuned by the lattice; extending the range of lattice control would enhance the ability to access other phases. We stabilized uniform extreme tensile strain in nanoscale La_0.7Ca_0.3MnO₃ membranes, exceeding 8% uniaxially and 5% biaxially. Uniaxial and biaxial strain suppresses the ferromagnetic metal at distinctly different strain values, inducing an insulator that can be extinguished by a magnetic field. Electronic structure calculations indicate that the insulator consists of charge-ordered Mn⁴⁺ and Mn³⁺ with staggered strain-enhanced Jahn-Teller distortions within the plane. This highly tunable strained membrane approach provides a broad opportunity to design and manipulate correlated electron states.

Publication types

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