Laser-induced transient magnons in Sr3Ir2O7 throughout the Brillouin zone.

Although ultrafast manipulation of magnetism holds great promise for new physical phenomena and applications, targeting specific states is held back by our limited understanding of how magnetic correlations evolve on ultrafast timescales. Using ultrafast resonant inelastic X-ray scattering we demonstrate that femtosecond laser pulses can excite transient magnons at large wavevectors in gapped antiferromagnets and that they persist for several picoseconds, which is opposite to what is observed in nearly gapless magnets. Our work suggests that materials with isotropic magnetic interactions are preferred to achieve rapid manipulation of magnetism.

Extraordinary Magnetic Response of an Anisotropic 2D Antiferromagnet via Site Dilution.

A prominent characteristic of 2D magnetic systems is the enhanced spin fluctuations, which reduce the ordering temperature. We report that a magnetic field of only 1000th of the Heisenberg superexchange interaction can induce a crossover, which for practical purposes is the effective ordering transition, at temperatures about 6 times the Néel transition in a site-diluted two-dimensional anisotropic quantum antiferromagnet. Such a strong magnetic response is enabled because the system directly enters the antiferromagnetically ordered state from the isotropic disordered state, skipping the intermediate anisotropic stage. The underlying mechanism is achieved on a pseudospin-half square lattice realized in the [(SrIrO3)1/(SrTiO3)2] superlattice thin film that is designed to linearly couple the staggered magnetization to external magnetic fields by virtue of the rotational symmetry-preserving Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. Our model analysis shows that the skipping of the anisotropic regime despite finite anisotropy is due to the enhanced isotropic fluctuations under moderate dilution.

Strain-Modulated Slater-Mott Crossover of Pseudospin-Half Square-Lattice in (SrIrO_{3})_{1}/(SrTiO_{3})_{1} Superlattices.

We report on the epitaxial strain-driven electronic and antiferromagnetic modulations of a pseudospin-half square-lattice realized in superlattices of (SrIrO_{3})_{1}/(SrTiO_{3})_{1}. With increasing compressive strain, we find the low-temperature insulating behavior to be strongly suppressed with a corresponding systematic reduction of both the Néel temperature and the staggered moment. However, despite such a suppression, the system remains weakly insulating above the Néel transition. The emergence of metallicity is observed under large compressive strain but only at temperatures far above the Néel transition. These behaviors are characteristics of the Slater-Mott crossover regime, providing a unique experimental model system of the spin-half Hubbard Hamiltonian with a tunable intermediate coupling strength.

Defect-Induced (Dis)Order in Relaxor Ferroelectric Thin Films.

The effect of intrinsic point defects on relaxor properties of 0.68 PbMg_{1/3}Nb_{2/3}O_{3}-0.32 PbTiO_{3} thin films is studied across nearly 2 orders of magnitude of defect concentration via ex post facto ion bombardment. A weakening of the relaxor character is observed with increasing concentration of bombardment-induced point defects, which is hypothesized to be related to strong interactions between defect dipoles and the polarization. Although more defects and structural disorder are introduced in the system as a result of ion bombardment, the special type of defects that are likely to form in these polar materials (i.e., defect dipoles) can stabilize the direction of polarization against thermal fluctuations, and in turn, weaken relaxor behavior.

Engineering Pt/Co/AlOxheterostructures to enhance the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction.

The study of interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) in perpendicularly magnetized structurally asymmetric heavy metal/ferromagnet multilayer systems is of high importance due to the formation of chiral magnetic textures in the presence of DMI. Here, we report the impact of cobalt oxidation at the Co/AlOxinterface in Pt/Co/AlOxtrilayer structures on the DMI by varying the post-growth annealing time, Al thickness and substrate. To quantify DMI we employed magneto-optical imaging of the asymmetric domain wall expansion, hysteresis loop shift, and spin-wave spectroscopy techniques. We further correlated the Co oxidation with low-temperature Hall effect measurements and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Our results emphasize the importance of full characterization of the magnetic films that could be used for magnetic random access memory technologies when subjected to the semiconductor temperature processing conditions, as the magnetic interactions are critical for device performance and can be highly sensitive to oxidation and other effects.

Engineering Relaxor Behavior in (BaTiO3 )n /(SrTiO3 )n Superlattices.

Complex-oxide superlattices provide a pathway to numerous emergent phenomena because of the juxtaposition of disparate properties and the strong interfacial interactions in these unit-cell-precise structures. This is particularly true in superlattices of ferroelectric and dielectric materials, wherein new forms of ferroelectricity, exotic dipolar textures, and distinctive domain structures can be produced. Here, relaxor-like behavior, typically associated with the chemical inhomogeneity and complexity of solid solutions, is observed in (BaTiO3 )n /(SrTiO3 )n (n = 4-20 unit cells) superlattices. Dielectric studies and subsequent Vogel-Fulcher analysis show significant frequency dispersion of the dielectric maximum across a range of periodicities, with enhanced dielectric constant and more robust relaxor behavior for smaller period n. Bond-valence molecular-dynamics simulations predict the relaxor-like behavior observed experimentally, and interpretations of the polar patterns via 2D discrete-wavelet transforms in shorter-period superlattices suggest that the relaxor behavior arises from shape variations of the dipolar configurations, in contrast to frozen antipolar stripe domains in longer-period superlattices (n = 16). Moreover, the size and shape of the dipolar configurations are tuned by superlattice periodicity, thus providing a definitive design strategy to use superlattice layering to create relaxor-like behavior which may expand the ability to control desired properties in these complex systems.

High-Temperature Atomic Layer Deposition of GaN on 1D Nanostructures.

Silica nanosprings (NS) were coated with gallium nitride (GaN) by high-temperature atomic layer deposition. The deposition temperature was 800 °C using trimethylgallium (TMG) as the Ga source and ammonia (NH3) as the reactive nitrogen source. The growth of GaN on silica nanosprings was compared with deposition of GaN thin films to elucidate the growth properties. The effects of buffer layers of aluminum nitride (AlN) and aluminum oxide (Al2O3) on the stoichiometry, chemical bonding, and morphology of GaN thin films were determined with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), high-resolution x-ray diffraction (HRXRD), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Scanning and transmission electron microscopy of coated silica nanosprings were compared with corresponding data for the GaN thin films. As grown, GaN on NS is conformal and amorphous. Upon introducing buffer layers of Al2O3 or AlN or combinations thereof, GaN is nanocrystalline with an average crystallite size of 11.5 ± 0.5 nm. The electrical properties of the GaN coated NS depends on whether or not a buffer layer is present and the choice of the buffer layer. In addition, the IV curves of GaN coated NS and the thin films (TF) with corresponding buffer layers, or lack thereof, show similar characteristic features, which supports the conclusion that atomic layer deposition (ALD) of GaN thin films with and without buffer layers translates to 1D nanostructures.