Electronic Structure of Strained Manganite Thin Films with Room Temperature Ferromagnetism Investigated by Hard X-ray Photoemission Spectroscopy

TL;DR

This study uses hard X-ray photoemission spectroscopy to analyze the electronic structure of strained manganite thin films, revealing a correlation between satellite peak intensity and ferromagnetic order.

Contribution

It introduces bulk-sensitive hard X-ray photoemission spectroscopy to investigate the intrinsic electronic structure of strained manganite thin films, highlighting the relationship with ferromagnetism.

Findings

Satellite peak intensity correlates with ferromagnetic order.

Strained films show a sharp satellite peak absent in unstrained films.

Satellite intensity matches the square of the magnetization.

Abstract

We report the bulk sensitive Hard X-ray (hv=5.95keV) core level photoemission spectroscopy to investigate the intrinsic electronic structure of strained (La0.85Ba0.15)MnO3 thin films. In a 20nm thick well-strained film with strongly enhanced ferromagnetism, a new sharp satellite peak appeared at the low energy site of the Mn 2p3/2 main peak, whereas a broader signal was observed for the unstrained film with 300nm thickness. Cluster calculations revealed that the intensity corresponded to the density of the state at the Fermi level relating to the magnitude of the ferromagnetic order. The satellite intensity also agreed quantitatively with the square of the magnetization.