Giant non-volatile electric field control of proximity induced magnetism in the spin-orbit semimetal SrIrO3

TL;DR

This study demonstrates a significant, non-volatile electric field control of proximity-induced magnetism in SrIrO3 heterostructures, with large changes in anomalous Hall effects driven by gating, while fundamental magnetic properties remain stable.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for non-volatile electric control of magnetism in SrIrO3, leveraging its large spin-orbit coupling and ferroelectric-like gating effects.

Findings

700% variation in anomalous Hall conductivity and Hall angle with gate voltage

Magnetic properties like Curie temperature remain unaffected by gating

Non-volatile switching enabled by ferroelectric-like state of SrTiO3

Abstract

With its potential for drastically reduced operation power of information processing devices, electric field control of magnetism has generated huge research interest. Recently, novel perspectives offered by the inherently large spin-orbit coupling of 5d transition metals have emerged. Here, we demonstrate non-volatile electrical control of the proximity induced magnetism in SrIrO3 based back-gated heterostructures. We report up to a 700 % variation of the anomalous Hall conductivity {\sigma}_AHE and Hall angle {\theta}_AHE as function of the applied gate voltage Vg. In contrast, the Curie temperature TC = 100K and magnetic anisotropy of the system remain essentially unaffected by Vg indicating a robust ferromagnetic state in SrIrO3 which strongly hints to gating-induced changes of the anomalous Berry curvature. The electric-field induced ferroelectric-like state of SrTiO3 enables non-volatile switching behavior of {\sigma}_AHE and {\theta}_AHE below 60 K. The large tunability of this system, opens new avenues towards efficient electric-field manipulation of magnetism.