Emergent Topological Hall Effect in La0.7Sr0.3MnO3/SrIrO3 Heterostructures.

ABSTRACT

Recently, perovskite oxide heterostructures have drawn great attention because multiple and complex coupling at the heterointerface may produce novel magnetic and electric phenomena that are not expected in homogeneous materials either in the bulk or in films. In this work, we report for the first time that an emergent giant topological Hall effect (THE), associated with a noncoplanar (NC) spin texture, can be induced in ferromagnetic (FM) La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 thin films in a wide temperature range of up to 200 K by constructing La0.7Sr0.3MnO3/SrIrO3 epitaxial heterostructures on (001) SrTiO3 substrates. This THE is not observed in La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 single-layer films or La0.7Sr0.3MnO3/SrTiO3/SrIrO3 trilayer heterostructures, indicating the relevance of the La0.7Sr0.3MnO3/SrIrO3 interface, where the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction due to strong spin-orbital coupling in SrIrO3 may play a crucial role. The fictitious field associated with THE is independent of temperature in La0.7Sr0.3MnO3/SrIrO3 heterostructures, suggesting that the NC spin texture may be magnetic skyrmions. This work demonstrates the feasibility of using SrIrO3 to generate novel magnetic and transport characteristics by interfacing with other correlated oxides, which might be useful to novel spintronic applications.