Reversible manipulation of the magnetic state in SrRuO3 through electric-field controlled proton evolution.

Academic Article

Abstract

  • Ionic substitution forms an essential pathway to manipulate the structural phase, carrier density and crystalline symmetry of materials via ion-electron-lattice coupling, leading to a rich spectrum of electronic states in strongly correlated systems. Using the ferromagnetic metal SrRuO3 as a model system, we demonstrate an efficient and reversible control of both structural and electronic phase transformations through the electric-field controlled proton evolution with ionic liquid gating. The insertion of protons results in a large structural expansion and increased carrier density, leading to an exotic ferromagnetic to paramagnetic phase transition. Importantly, we reveal a novel protonated compound of HSrRuO3 with paramagnetic metallic as ground state. We observe a topological Hall effect at the boundary of the phase transition due to the proton concentration gradient across the film-depth. We envision that electric-field controlled protonation opens up a pathway to explore novel electronic states and material functionalities in protonated material systems.
  • Authors

  • Li, Zhuolu
  • Shen, Shengchun
  • Tian, Zijun
  • Hwangbo, Kyle
  • Wang, Meng
  • Wang, Yujia
  • Bartram, F Michael
  • He, Liqun
  • Lyu, Yingjie
  • Dong, Yongqi
  • Wan, Gang
  • Li, Haobo
  • Lu, Nianpeng
  • Zang, Jiadong
  • Zhou, Hua
  • Arenholz, Elke
  • He, Qing
  • Yang, Luyi
  • Luo, Weidong
  • Yu, Pu
  • Publication Date

  • January 10, 2020
  • Published In

    Digital Object Identifier (doi)

    Start Page

  • 184
  • Volume

  • 11
  • Issue

  • 1