Low-energy orbital excitations in strained LaCoO3 films

Ru-Pan Wang, Jaap Geessinck, Hebatalla Elnaggar, Yorick A. Birkholzer, Keisuke Tomiyasu, Jun Okamoto, Boyang Liu, Chao-Hung Du, Di-Jing Huang, Gertjan Koster, Frank M. F. de Groot

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

We present 90 meV resolved Co
2
p
3
d
resonant inelastic x-ray scattering linear dichroism spectra of strained
LaCoO
3
films and a
LaCoO
3
single crystal. A polarization-dependent low-energy excitation is observed at

0.2
eV
on the tensile-strained
LaCoO
3
/
SrTiO
3
film, while it is not observed in either bulk
LaCoO
3
or the compressive-strained
LaCoO
3
/
LaAlO
3
film. Guided by cluster calculations, we are able to distinguish the spin-state manifolds close to their transition point of
Co
3
+
ions in
LaCoO
3
systems. Through a polarization analysis, we show that the spin state can easily flip from a low-spin
1
A
1
g
state in an octahedral symmetry to the high-spin
5
B
2
g
or
5
E
g
states with a small tetragonal distortion. A mixture of spin states suggests that the high-spin
Co
3
+
plays an important role in long-range ferromagnetic order on both tensile- and compressive-strained
LaCoO
3
films.
Original languageEnglish
Article number165148
JournalPhysical Review B
Volume100
Issue number16
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 31 Oct 2019

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