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Quantum many-body interactions in digital oxide superlattices

Nature Materials volume 11, pages 855–859 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Controlling the electronic properties of interfaces has enormous scientific and technological implications and has been recently extended from semiconductors to complex oxides that host emergent ground states not present in the parent materials1,2,3,4,5. These oxide interfaces present a fundamentally new opportunity where, instead of conventional bandgap engineering, the electronic and magnetic properties can be optimized by engineering quantum many-body interactions5,6,7. We use an integrated oxide molecular-beam epitaxy and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy system to synthesize and investigate the electronic structure of superlattices of the Mott insulator LaMnO3 and the band insulator SrMnO3. By digitally varying the separation between interfaces in (LaMnO3)2n/(SrMnO3)n superlattices with atomic-layer precision, we demonstrate that quantum many-body interactions are enhanced, driving the electronic states from a ferromagnetic polaronic metal to a pseudogapped insulating ground state. This work demonstrates how many-body interactions can be engineered at correlated oxide interfaces, an important prerequisite to exploiting such effects in novel electronics.

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Figure 1: Overview of the superlattices’ electronic structure and properties.
Figure 2: The tight-binding parametrization.
Figure 3: Electronic structure of the hole pockets.
Figure 4: Strongly renormalized quasiparticle peak.
Figure 5: The pseudogap and temperature-dependent spectral weight.

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Acknowledgements

We thank L. Fitting Kourkoutis for helpful discussions and E. Kirkland for technical assistance. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (DMR-0847385), the Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers program through DMR-1120296, IMR-0417392 and DMR-9977547 (Cornell Center for Materials Research), a Research Corporation Cottrell Scholars award (20025), and New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Innovation (NYSTAR). J.A.M. acknowledges support from the Army Research Office in the form of a NDSEG fellowship. E.J.M. acknowledges the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for PGS support.

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Author notes

  1. Eric J. Monkman and Carolina Adamo: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA

    Eric J. Monkman, Daniel E. Shai, John W. Harter, Dawei Shen, Bulat Burganov & Kyle M. Shen

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA

    Carolina Adamo & Darrell G. Schlom

  3. School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA

    Julia A. Mundy & David A. Muller

  4. Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA

    David A. Muller, Darrell G. Schlom & Kyle M. Shen

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  1. Eric J. Monkman
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Contributions

ARPES data was collected by E.J.M., D.E.S., J.W.H., D.S., B.B. and K.M.S. and analysed by E.J.M. and K.M.S. Film growth and X-ray diffraction were performed by C.A. Electron microscopy and spectroscopy measurements were performed by J.A.M. and D.A.M. The manuscript was prepared by E.J.M. and K.M.S. The study was planned and supervised by D.G.S. and K.M.S. All authors discussed results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Kyle M. Shen.

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Monkman, E., Adamo, C., Mundy, J. et al. Quantum many-body interactions in digital oxide superlattices. Nature Mater 11, 855–859 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3405

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