Low-energy orbital excitations in strained LaCoO3 films

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

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

We present 90 meV resolved Co 2p3d resonant inelastic x-ray scattering linear dichroism spectra of strained LaCoO3 films and a LaCoO3 single crystal. A polarization-dependent low-energy excitation is observed at ∼0.2eV on the tensile-strained LaCoO3/SrTiO3 film, while it is not observed in either bulk LaCoO3 or the compressive-strained LaCoO3/LaAlO3 film. Guided by cluster calculations, we are able to distinguish the spin-state manifolds close to their transition point of Co3+ ions in LaCoO3 systems. Through a polarization analysis, we show that the spin state can easily flip from a low-spin A1g1 state in an octahedral symmetry to the high-spin B2g5 or Eg5 states with a small tetragonal distortion. A mixture of spin states suggests that the high-spin Co3+ plays an important role in long-range ferromagnetic order on both tensile- and compressive-strained LaCoO3 films.

Original languageEnglish
Article number165148
JournalPhysical review B: Covering condensed matter and materials physics
Volume100
Issue number16
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 31 Oct 2019

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