Anomalous Hall Effect in Ultrathin Crystalline Strontium Ruthenate Membranes

SrRuO3 (SRO) is a complex oxide that hosts a plethora of exotic magneto-transport properties due to its strong spin-orbit coupling and itinerant ferromagnetism. In particular it is an excellent candidate to investigate the intrinsic Berry-phase driven Anomalous Hall Effect. A recent breakthrough¹ has allowed complex oxides, epitaxially grown via pulsed laser deposition, to be exfoliated and released via a sacrificial layer. These freestanding complex oxide membranes are an exciting new platform for investigating and tuning the interplay between structural and electronic properties².
We systematically investigate the temperature dependence of the anomalous Hall effect within SRO membranes of varying thicknesses. In addition, extensive characterization is performed via X-ray diffraction. The exfoliation process is shown to release the epitaxial strain while maintaining long-range crystallinity, thus producing highly ordered, strain-free, conducting ferromagnetic membranes. These electronic and magnetic properties were found to be comparable to their epitaxial counterparts, paving the way towards prospective atomically-thin itinerant ferromagnetic membranes.
[1] D. Lu et al., Nat. Mater., 15, 1255 (2016).
[2] D. Davidovikj et al. Commun. Phys. 3, 163 (2020).