Engineering a spin-orbital magnetic insulator by tailoring superlattices

松野 丈夫*; 井原 康太*; 山村 周玄*; 和達 大樹*; 石井 賢司; Shankar, V.*; Kee, H.-Y.*; 高木 英典*

Physical Review Letters, 114(24), p.247209_1 - 247209_5, 2015/06

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.247209

In Ir oxides with interplay of spin-orbit coupling and electron correlations, we have tailored a spin-orbital magnetic insulator out of a semimetal SrIrO by tuning the structure through superlattices [(SrIrO), SrTiO] ( = 1, 2, 3, 4, and ). We observed the systematic decrease of the magnetic ordering temperature and the resistivity as a function of . The transition from the semimetal to the insulator is found to be closely linked to the appearance of magnetism at 3. Long range magnetic ordering was realized even in the = 1 single layer superlattice, implying that the design and realization of novel electronic phases is feasible at the level of a single atomic layer in complex Ir oxides.