Anomalous orbital structure in a spinel-perovskite interface

Yanwei Cao, Xiaoran Liu, Padraic Shafer, Srimanta Middey, Derek Meyers, Mikhail Kareev, Zhicheng Zhong, Jong Woo Kim, Philip J. Ryan, Elke Arenholz, Jak Chakhalian

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

36 Scopus citations

Abstract

In all archetypical reported (001)-oriented perovskite heterostructures, it has been deduced that the preferential occupation of twodimensional electron gases is in-plane dxy state. In sharp contrast to this, the investigated electronic structure of a spinel-perovskite heterostructure γ-Al2O3/SrTiO3 by resonant soft X-ray linear dichroism, demonstrates that the preferential occupation is in out-of-plane dxz/dyz states for interfacial electrons. Moreover, the impact of strain further corroborates that this anomalous orbital structure can be linked to the altered crystal field at the interface and symmetry breaking of the interfacial structural units. Our findings provide another interesting route to engineer emergent quantum states with deterministic orbital symmetry.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number16009
Journalnpj Quantum Materials
Volume1
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 12 2016

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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