Controllable Itinerant Ferromagnetism in Weakly Correlated 5d SrIrO3

The weakly correlated nature of 5d oxide SrIrO3 determines its rare ferromagnetism, and the control of its magnetic order is even less studied. Tailoring structure distortion is currently a main route to tune the magnetic order of 5d iridates, but only for the spatially confined insulating counterparts. Here, we have realized ferromagnetic order in metallic SrIrO3 by construction of SrIrO3/ferromagnetic-insulator (LaCoO3) superlattices, which reveal a giant coercivity of similar to 10 T and saturation field of similar to 25 T with strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. The Curie temperature of SrIrO3 can be controlled by engineering interface charge transfer, which is confirmed by Hall effect measurements collaborating with EELS and XAS. Besides, the noncoplanar spin texture is captured, which is caused by interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions as well. These results indicate controllable itinerant ferromagnetism and an emergent topological magnetic state in strong spin-orbit coupled semimetal SrIrO3, showing great potential to develop efficient spintronic devices.

Automated summary

Ferromagnetic order is achieved in metallic SrIrO3 by constructing SrIrO3/ferromagnetic-insulator superlattices, exhibiting strong coercivity and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. The Curie temperature of SrIrO3 can be controlled by engineering interface charge transfer, and noncoplanar spin texture is observed.