Magneto-optical properties of textured La$_{2/3}$Sr$_{1/3}$MnO$_3$ thin films integrated on silicon via a Ca$_2$Nb$_3$O$_{10}$ nanosheet layer

TL;DR

This study demonstrates the growth of textured La$_{2/3}$Sr$_{1/3}$MnO$_3$ thin films on silicon using a Ca$_2$Nb$_3$O$_{10}$ nanosheet seed layer, achieving magneto-optical properties comparable to epitaxial layers on bulk substrates.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for growing high-quality textured LSMO films on silicon with a nanosheet seed layer, enabling integration with silicon-based devices.

Findings

LSMO films on silicon exhibit high Curie temperature.

Optical and magneto-optical spectra are similar to those on traditional substrates.

The electronic structure of LSMO on nanosheet/Si is comparable to epitaxial LSMO on STO.

Abstract

We demonstrate the possibility of growing textured La$_{2/3}$Sr$_{1/3}$MnO$_3$ (LSMO) thin films on silicon substrates with magneto-optical and optical properties comparable to high-quality epitaxial layers grown on bulk SrTiO$_3$ (STO). The pulsed laser deposition growth of LSMO is achieved by a two-dimensional nanosheet (NS) seed layer of Ca$_2$Nb$_3$O$_{10}$ (CNO) inducing epitaxial stabilization of LSMO films. The resulting layers possess a higher Curie temperature and a lower overall magnetization than samples of LSMO on STO. Spectra of the full permittivity tensor were calculated from optical and magneto-optical measurements. Spectral dependencies of both the diagonal and off-diagonal elements share many similarities between the LSMO/NS/Si and LSMO/STO samples. These similarities indicate comparable electronic structures of the layers and demonstrate comparable optical quality of textured LSMO on NS/Si and epitaxial LSMO on STO.