Orbital Reconstruction Enhanced Exchange Bias in La0.6Sr0.4MnO3/Orthorhombic YMnO3 Heterostructures.

The exchange bias in ferromagnetic/multiferroic heterostructures is usually considered to originate from interfacial coupling. In this work, an orbital reconstruction enhanced exchange bias was discovered. As La0.6Sr0.4MnO3 (LSMO) grown on YMnO3 (YMO) suffers a tensile strain (a > c), the doubly degenerate eg orbital splits into high energy 3z(2) - r(2) and low energy x(2) - y(2) orbitals, which makes electrons occupy the localized x(2) - y(2) orbital and leads to the formation of antiferromagnetic phase in LSMO. The orbital reconstruction induced antiferromagnetic phase enhances the exchange bias in the LSMO/YMO heterostructures, lightening an effective way for electric-field modulated magnetic moments in multiferroic magnetoelectric devices.