Electronic and spin states of SrRuO3 thin films: An x-ray magnetic circular dichroism study

ISSN
1550-235X
1098-0121
Date Issued
2015
Author(s)
Agrestini, S.
Hu, Z.
Kuo, C.-Y.
Haverkort, M. W.
Ko, K.-T.
Hollmann, N.
Liu, Q.
Pellegrin, E.
Valvidares, M.
Herrero-Martin, J.
Gargiani, P.
Gegenwart, Philipp
Esser, S.
Tanaka, A.
Komarek, A. C.
Tjeng, L. H.
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevB.91.075127
Abstract
We report a study of the local magnetism in thin films of SrRuO3 grown on (111) and (001) oriented SrTiO3 substrates using x-ray magnetic circular dichroism spectroscopy (XMCD) at the Ru-L-2,L-3 edges. The application of the sum rules to the XMCD data gives an almost quenched orbital moment and a spin moment close to the value expected for the low spin state S = 1. Full-multiplet cluster calculations indicate that the low spin state is quite stable and suggest that the occurrence of a transition to the high spin state S = 2 in strained thin films of SrRuO3 is unlikely as it would be too expensive in energy.