Interface-induced magnetism in perovskite quantum wells

Abstract

We investigate the angular dependence of the magnetoresistance of thin (< 1 nm), metallic SrTiO3 quantum wells epitaxially embedded in insulating, ferrimagnetic GdTiO3 and insulating, antiferromagnetic SmTiO3, respectively. The SrTiO3 quantum wells contain a high density of mobile electrons (~7x10^14 cm^-2). We show that the longitudinal and transverse magnetoresistance in the structures with GdTiO3 are consistent with anisotropic magnetoresistance, and thus indicative of induced ferromagnetism in the SrTiO3, rather than a nonequilibrium proximity effect. Comparison with the structures with antiferromagnetic SmTiO3 shows that the properties of thin SrTiO3 quantum wells can be tuned to obtain magnetic states that do not exist in the bulk material.