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Interfacial charge transfer and persistent metallicity of ultrathin SrIrO3/SrRuO3 heterostructures

Cornell Affiliated Author(s)

Author

J.N. Nelson
N.J. Schreiber
A.B. Georgescu
B.H. Goodge
B.D. Faeth
C.T. Parzyck
Cyrus Zeledon
L.F. Kourkoutis
A.J. Millis
A. Georges
D.G. Schlom
K.M. Shen

Abstract

Interface quantum materials have yielded a plethora of previously unknown phenomena, including unconventional superconductivity, topological phases, and possible Majorana fermions. Typically, such states are detected at the interface between two insulating constituents by electrical transport, but whether either material is conducting, transport techniques become insensitive to interfacial properties. To overcome these limitations, we use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and molecular beam epitaxy to reveal the electronic structure, charge transfer, doping profile, and carrier effective masses in a layer-by-layer fashion for the interface between the Dirac nodal-line semimetal SrIrO3 and the correlated metallic Weyl ferromagnet SrRuO3. We find that electrons are transferred from the SrIrO3 to SrRuO3, with an estimated screening length of λ = 3.2 ± 0.1 Å. In addition, we find that metallicity is preserved even down to a single SrIrO3 layer, where the dimensionality-driven metal-insulator transition typically observed in SrIrO3 is avoided because of strong hybridization of the Ir and Ru t2g states. © 2022 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).

Date Published

Journal

Science Advances

Volume

8

Issue

5

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85124175007&doi=10.1126%2fsciadv.abj0481&partnerID=40&md5=951b63d71a439ac4f90ef08fd5f4d26b

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abj0481

Group (Lab)

Kyle Shen Group

Funding Source

PHY-1549132
DMR-1709255
DMR-2039380
DMR-2104427
DGE-1650441
FA9550-15-1-0474
FA9550-21-1-0168
GBMF3850
GBMF9073
NNCI-2025233
DMR-1719875
NSF-MRI-1429155

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