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Phys. Rev. B 78, 094413 (2008) [7 pages]

Critical thickness and orbital ordering in ultrathin La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 films

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M. Huijben1,2,*, L. W. Martin1, Y.-H. Chu1,3, M. B. Holcomb1, P. Yu1, G. Rijnders2, D. H. A. Blank2, and R. Ramesh1
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA and Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
2Faculty of Science and Technology and MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, P.O. BOX 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands
3Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan

Received 2 July 2008; revised 31 July 2008; published 16 September 2008

Detailed analysis of transport, magnetism, and x-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements on ultrathin La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 films with thicknesses from 3 to 70 unit cells resulted in the identification of a lower critical thickness for a nonmetallic nonferromagnetic layer at the interface with the SrTiO3 (001) substrate of only three unit cells (∼12 Å). Furthermore, linear-dichroism measurements demonstrate the presence of a preferred (x2-y2) in-plane orbital ordering for all layer thicknesses without any orbital reconstruction at the interface. A crucial requirement for the accurate study of these ultrathin films is a controlled growth process, offering the coexistence of layer-by-layer growth and bulklike magnetic/transport properties.

© 2008 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.78.094413
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.78.094413
PACS:
75.70.Ak, 68.55.A−, 75.47.Lx, 78.70.Dm

*m.huijben@utwente.nl

 
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