Strain-tunable magnetism at oxide domain walls
Using ultrasensitive magnetic probes, BIU researchers led by Prof. Beena Kalisky (BIU) and Prof. Nini Pryds (DTU) unveil a surprising link between emergent magnetism and mechanical pressure in artificially engineered non-magnetic oxide heterostructures.
Prof. Kalisky, of Bar-Ilan University's Department of Physics and Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials (BINA), has found surprising evidence that magnetism which emerges at the interfaces between non-magnetic oxide thin layers can be easily tuned by exerting tiny mechanical forces. The team also includes Prof. Lior Klein, of Bar-Ilan's Department of Physics and BINA, and researchers from Technical University of Denmark - DTU and Stanford University.
It is now possible to engineer materials layer by layer where each layer is atomically thin. This ability opens new research directions where there is precise control of materials properties and new and fascinating physical properties emerge. Complex oxide materials show very interesting properties, for example, it was shown about 15 years ago that when few atomic layers of the insulating oxide LaAlO3 is grown on SrTiO3 a thin 2 dimensional conductive layers appears at their interface. In this research we discovered that there are small nanometric areas at the interface that exhibit magnetic properties under pressure. This discovery was only possible thanks to the "scanning SQUID" microscope we develop in our lab. The SQUID is the most sensitive magnetometer to-date. Our discovery raised the possibility of designing nano scale devices that combine pressure-tuned magnetism together with other properties of oxides.
The article published at Nature Physics Journal
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