Journal Article

Reversible manipulation of the magnetic state in SrRuO3 through electric-field controlled proton evolution

Lyu, Yingjie, Dong, Yongqi, He, Qing, Wang, Meng, Zang, Jiadong, Li, Haobo, Bartram, F. Michael, Wan, Gang, Lu, Nianpeng, Yu, Pu, Tian, Zijun, Arenholz, Elke, Zhou, Hua, Luo, Weidong, Wang, Yujia, Yang, Luyi, Shen, Shengchun, Li, Zhuolu, Hwangbo, Kyle, He, Liqun

2020

Overview

Ionic substitution forms an essential pathway to manipulate the structural phase, carrier density and crystalline symmetry of materials via ion-electron-lattice coupling, leading to a rich spectrum of electronic states in strongly correlated systems. Using the ferromagnetic metal SrRuO 3 as a model system, we demonstrate an efficient and reversible control of both structural and electronic phase transformations through the electric-field controlled proton evolution with ionic liquid gating. The insertion of protons results in a large structural expansion and increased carrier density, leading to an exotic ferromagnetic to paramagnetic phase transition. Importantly, we reveal a novel protonated compound of HSrRuO 3 with paramagnetic metallic as ground state. We observe a topological Hall effect at the boundary of the phase transition due to the proton concentration gradient across the film-depth. We envision that electric-field controlled protonation opens up a pathway to explore novel electronic states and material functionalities in protonated material systems. Ionic substitution is a useful way to manipulate structural, electronic, magnetic phase transitions in strongly correlated materials. Here, the authors report electric-field controlled protonation in SrRuO 3 , resulting in a large structural expansion and a ferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic phase transition.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group,Nature Portfolio
• Subject: 639/766/119/2793 / 639/766/119/995 / 639/766/119/997 / Carrier density / Concentration gradient / Electric fields / Electron states / Evolution / Ferromagnetism / Gating / Hall effect / Humanities and Social Sciences / Ionic liquids / Ions / MATERIALS SCIENCE / Materials substitution / multidisciplinary / Phase transitions / Protonation / Protons / Science / Science (multidisciplinary)