Direct experimental evidence of tunable charge transfer at the LaNiO3/CaMnO3 ferromagnetic interface

Interfacial charge transfer in oxide heterostructures gives rise to a rich variety of electronic and magnetic phenomena. Designing heterostructures where one of the thin-film components exhibits a metal-insulator transition opens a promising avenue for controlling such phenomena both statically and dynamically. In this work, we utilize a combination of depth-resolved soft x-ray standing-wave and hard x-ray photoelectron spectroscopies in conjunction with polarization-dependent x-ray absorption spectroscopy to investigate the effects of the metal-insulator transition in LaNiO3 on the electronic and magnetic states at the LaNiO3/CaMnO3 interface. We report a direct observation of the reduced effective valence state of the interfacial Mn cations in the metallic superlattice with an above-critical LaNiO3 thickness (6 unit cells, u.c.) facilitated by the charge transfer of itinerant Ni3deg electrons into the interfacial CaMnO3 layer. Conversely, in an insulating superlattice with a below-critical LaNiO3 thickness of 2u.c., a homogeneous effective valence state of Mn is observed throughout the CaMnO3 layers due to the blockage of charge transfer across the interface. The ability to switch and tune interfacial charge transfer enables precise control of the emergent ferromagnetic state at the LaNiO3/CaMnO3 interface and, thus, has far-reaching consequences on the future strategies for the design of next-generation spintronic devices.