Electronic and magnetic properties of (1 1 1)-oriented CoCr2O4 epitaxial thin film

TL;DR

This study demonstrates the fabrication and detailed characterization of high-quality (1 1 1)-oriented CoCr2O4 epitaxial thin films, revealing their structural, electronic, and magnetic properties, and highlighting their potential for creating Kagome heterostructures with novel quantum phenomena.

Contribution

The paper presents a method to grow defect-free (1 1 1)-oriented CoCr2O4 thin films with natural Kagome and triangular layers, enabling new quantum material designs.

Findings

No disorder in cation distribution or multivalency in samples

Formation of Kagome and triangular layers through specific growth

Potential for fabricating quantum many-body heterostructures

Abstract

We report on the fabrication of high quality (1 1 1)-oriented ferrimagnetic normal spinel CoCr2O4 epitaxial thin films on single crystal Al2O3 substrates. The structural, electronic and magnetic properties were characterized by in-situ reflection high energy electron diffraction, atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, SQUID magnetometry and element resolved resonant X-ray magnetic scattering. The comprehensive characterization reveals that no disorder in the cation distribution or multivalency issue is present in the samples. As a result, Kagome and triangular layers are naturally formed via this specific growth approach. These findings offer a pathway to fabricate two dimensional Kagome heterostructures with novel quantum many-body phenomena by means of geometrical design.