Manipulating topological Hall-like signatures by interface engineering in epitaxial ruthenate/manganite heterostructures

Pinku Roy; Di Zhang; Alessandro R Mazza; Nicholas Cucciniello; Sundar Kunwar; Hao Zeng; Aiping Chen; Quanxi Jia

doi:10.1039/d3nr02407e

Manipulating topological Hall-like signatures by interface engineering in epitaxial ruthenate/manganite heterostructures

Nanoscale. 2023 Nov 9;15(43):17589-17598. doi: 10.1039/d3nr02407e.

Authors

Pinku Roy^{1

2}, Di Zhang², Alessandro R Mazza², Nicholas Cucciniello^{1

2}, Sundar Kunwar², Hao Zeng³, Aiping Chen², Quanxi Jia¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Design and Innovation, University at Buffalo - The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA. pinkur@lanl.gov.
² Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT), Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA. apchen@lanl.gov.
³ Department of Physics, University at Buffalo - The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA.

PMID: 37873761
DOI: 10.1039/d3nr02407e

Abstract

Topologically protected non-trivial spin textures (e.g. skyrmions) give rise to a novel phenomenon called the topological Hall effect (THE) and have promising implications in future energy-efficient nanoelectronic and spintronic devices. Here, we have studied the Hall effect in SrRuO₃/La_0.42Ca_0.58MnO₃ (SRO/LCMO) bilayers. Our investigation suggests that pure SRO has hard and soft magnetic characteristics but the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in SRO is governed by the high coercivity phase. We have shown that the proximity effect of a soft magnetic LCMO on SRO plays a critical role in interfacial magnetic coupling and transport properties in SRO. Upon reducing the SRO thickness in the bilayer, the proximity effect becomes the dominant feature, enhancing the magnitude and temperature range of THE-like signatures. The THE-like features in bilayers can be explained by a diffusive Berry phase transition model in the presence of an emergent magnetic state due to interface coupling. This work provides an alternative understanding of THE-like signatures and their manipulation in SRO-based heterostructures, bilayers and superlattices.