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Surface effects on the orbital order in the single-layered manganite La0.5Sr1.5MnO4

Nature Materials volume 6, pages 972–976 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

The question of how bulk electronic order is terminated at a surface is an intriguing one, and one with possible practical implications—for example in nanoscaled systems that may be characterized by their surface behaviour. One example of such order is orbital order, and in principle it should be possible to probe the termination of this order with surface X-ray scattering. Here, we report the first observation of the scattering arising from the termination of bulk orbital order at the surface of a crystal—so-called ‘orbital truncation rods’. The measurements, carried out on a cleaved perovskite, La0.5Sr1.5MnO4, reveal that whereas the crystallographic surface is atomically smooth, the orbital ‘surface’, which is observed through the atomic displacements caused by the orbital order, is much rougher, with a typical scale of the surface roughness of ∼7 Å. Interestingly, the temperature dependence of this scattering shows evidence of a surface-induced second-order transition.

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Figure 1: Characterization of the chemical surface.
Figure 2: Surface scattering intensity from chemical and orbital surfaces.
Figure 3: Analysis of the CTR profiles corresponding to the orbital order.
Figure 4: Temperature dependence of the bulk- and surface-orbital order.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Checco for helping with AFM measurements. Y.W. wishes to acknowledge the Yamada Science Foundation, support for long-term visit. US DOE, Basic Energy Sciences supported work at Brookhaven under contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886, at Argonne under contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357 and at the MUCAT Sector at the Advanced Photon Source and Ames Laboratory under contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11358.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Photon Factory, Institute of Materials Structure Science, High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, Tsukuba 305-0801, Japan

    Y. Wakabayashi

  2. CMPMS, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA

    Y. Wakabayashi, M. H. Upton, S. Grenier & J. P. Hill

  3. Institut Néel, CNRS & Université Joseph Fourier, BP 166, F-38042 Grenoble Cedex 9, France

    S. Grenier

  4. National Synchrotron Light Source, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA

    C. S. Nelson

  5. Ames Laboratory and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State Univ., Ames, Iowa 50011, USA

    J.-W. Kim, P. J. Ryan & A. I. Goldman

  6. Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA

    H. Zheng & J. F. Mitchell

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  1. Y. Wakabayashi
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Correspondence to Y. Wakabayashi.

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Wakabayashi, Y., Upton, M., Grenier, S. et al. Surface effects on the orbital order in the single-layered manganite La0.5Sr1.5MnO4. Nature Mater 6, 972–976 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2061

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