High-mobility spin-polarized two-dimensional electron gas at the interface of LaTiO3/SrTiO3 (110) heterostructures

Abstract

High-quality antiferromagnetic Mott insulator thin films of LaTiO₃ (LTO) were epitaxially grown onto SrTiO₃ (STO) (110) substrates using the pulsed laser deposition. The LTO/STO heterostructures are not only highly conducting and ferromagnetic, but also show Kondo effect, Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations with a nonzero Berry phase of π, and low-field hysteretic negative magnetoresistance (MR). Angle-dependent SdH oscillations and a calculation of the thickness of the interfacial conducting layer indicate the formation of a 4-nm high mobility two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) layer at the interface. Moreover, an amazingly large low-field negative MR of ∼61.8% is observed at 1.8 K and 200 Oe, which is approximately one to two orders of magnitude larger than those observed in other spin-polarized 2DEG oxide systems. All these results demonstrate that the 2DEG is spin-polarized and the 4-nm interfacial layer is ferromagnetic, which are attributed to the presence of magnetic Ti³⁺ ions due to interfacial oxygen vacancies and the diffusion of La³⁺ ions into the STO substrate. The localized Ti³⁺ magnetic moments couple to high mobility itinerant electrons under magnetic fields, giving rise to the observed low-field MR. Our work demonstrates the great potential of antiferromagnetic titanate oxide interface for designing spin-polarized 2DEG and spintronic devices.