Polarized neutron reflectivity studies on epitaxial BiFeO₃/La_0.7Sr_0.3MnO₃ heterostructure integrated with Si (100)

This work reports polarized neutron reflectivity (PNR) measurements performed using the Magnetism Reflectometer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on epitaxial BiFeO₃(BFO)/La_0.7Sr_0.3MnO₃(LSMO)/SrTiO₃(STO)/MgO/TiN heterostructure deposited on Si (100) substrates. By measuring the angular dependence of neutrons reflected from the sample, PNR can provide insights on interface magnetic spin structure, chemical composition and magnetic depth profiles with a nanometer resolution. Our first analysis of nuclear scattering length density (NSLD) and magnetic scattering length density (MSLD) depth profiles measured at 4 K have successfully reproduced most of the expected features of this heterostructure, such as the NSLD for the Si, TiN, MgO, STO, LSMO layers and remanent magnetization (2.28μB/Mn) of bulk LSMO. However, the SLD of the BFO is decreased by about 30% from the expected value. When 5 V was applied across the BFO/LSMO interface, we found that the magnetic moment of the LSMO layer could be varied by about 15-20% at 6 K. Several mechanisms such as redistribution of oxygen vacancies, interface strain, charge screening and valence state change at the interface could be at play. Work is in progress to gain an improved in-depth understanding of these effects using MOKE and STEM-Z interface specific measurements.