- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Materials

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Microscopic study of thermally and electrically driven magnetic changes in La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 films on BaTiO3 substrates

X. Moya1,*, M. Ghidini1,2,3, F. Maccherozzi3, L. C. Phillips1, T. I. Polek4, D. M. Polishchuk4, A. I. Tovstolytkin4, S. S. Dhesi3,†, and N. D. Mathur1,‡

  • *Contact author: xm212@cam.ac.uk
  • †Contact author: dhesi@diamond.ac.uk
  • ‡Contact author: ndm12@cam.ac.uk
PDF

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 054401 – Published 1 May, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/rgyl-7zk5

Abstract

Epitaxial films of the ferromagnetic manganite La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 on substrates of the ferroelectric perovskite BaTiO3 are known to display sharp magnetic changes and large magnetoelectric effects when the film is strained by the substrate undergoing thermally driven structural transitions and ferroelectric domain switching, respectively. However, only a single component of the in-plane magnetization has been hitherto imaged. Here we present magnetic vector maps—obtained from photoemission electron microscopy images with magnetic contrast from x-ray magnetic circular dichroism—to show that the electrically and thermally driven changes of local and global magnetization are deterministically influenced by the state of the substrate while also being complex and sample dependent. Our findings, supported by ferromagnetic resonance data and vibrating sample magnetometry, reveal that the behavior of La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 films on BaTiO3 substrates is not well predicted from knowledge of each system, probably due to long-range strain between BaTiO3 domains. In the future, it would be interesting to reduce complexity by patterning the film into regions between which magnetic communication is negligible.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Collections

This article appears in the following collection:

Magnetic Phenomena at Oxide Interfaces: Fundamentals to Devices

The Editors of Physical Review Materials are pleased to present the Collection on Magnetic Phenomena at Oxide Interfaces, highlighting cutting-edge advances in oxide interface magnetism and its applications. The Collection is being guest-edited by Lucas Caretta from Brown University (USA) and Jacobo Santamaria from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). Every article published in this collection underwent a rigorous peer review process, adhering to the same high standards applied to all papers. The Physical Review Materials editorial team managed the peer review and made all editorial decisions.

Article Text

References (36)

  1. W. Eerenstein, J. F. Scott, and N. D. Mathur, Multiferroic and magnetoelectric materials, Nature (London) 442, 759 (2006).
  2. C. Thiele, K. Dörr, O. Bilani, J. Rödel, and L. Schultz, Influence of strain on the magnetization and magnetoelectric effect in La0.7A0.3MnO3/PMN−PT(001) (A=Sr,Ca), Phys. Rev. B 75, 054408 (2007).
  3. S. Sahoo, S. Polisetty, C.-G. Duan, S. S. Jaswal, E. Y. Tsymbal, and C. Binek, Ferroelectric control of magnetism in BaTiO3/Fe heterostructures via interface strain coupling, Phys. Rev. B 76, 092108 (2007).
  4. S. Geprägs, A. Brandlmaier, M. Opel, R. Gross, and S. T. B. Goennenwein, Electric field controlled manipulation of the magnetization in Ni/BaTiO3 hybrid structures, Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 142509 (2010).
  5. T. Wu, A. Bur, P. Zhao, K. P. Mohanchandra, K. Wong, K. L. Wang, C. S. Lynch, and G. P. Carman, Giant electric-field-induced reversible and permanent magnetization reorientation on magnetoelectric Ni/(011) [Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3](1−x)–[PbTiO3]x heterostructure, Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 012504 (2011).
  6. T. Wu, A. Bur, K. Wong, P. Zhao, C. S. Lynch, P. K. Amiri, K. L. Wang, and G. P. Carman, Electrical control of reversible and permanent magnetization reorientation for magnetoelectric memory devices, Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 262504 (2011).
  7. T. H. E. Lahtinen, K. J. A. Franke, and S. van Dijken, Electric-field control of magnetic domain wall motion and local magnetization reversal, Sci. Rep. 2, 258 (2012).
  8. S. Zhang, Y. G. Zhao, P. S. Li, J. J. Yang, S. Rizwan, J. X. Zhang, J. Seidel, T. L. Qu, Y. J. Yang, Z. L. Luo, et al., Electric-field control of nonvolatile magnetization in Co40Fe40B20=Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)0.7Ti0.3O3 Structure at room temperature, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 137203 (2012).
  9. M. Buzzi, R. V. Chopdekar, J. L. Hockel, A. Bur, T. Wu, N. Pilet, P. Warnicke, G. P. Carman, L. J. Heyderman, and F. Nolting, Single domain spin manipulation by electric fields in strain coupled artificial multiferroic nanostructures, Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 027204 (2013).
  10. R. O. Cherifi, V. Ivanovskaya, L. C. Phillips, A. Zobelli, I. C. Infante, E. Jacquet, V. Garcia, S. Fusil, P. R. Briddon, N. Guiblin, et al., Electric-field control of magnetic order above room temperature, Nat. Mater. 13, 345 (2014).
  11. M. Ghidini, F. Maccherozzi, X. Moya, L. C. Phillips, W. Yan, J. Soussi, N. Métallier, M. E. Vickers, N.-J. Steinke, R. Mansell, et al., Perpendicular magnetization under voltage control in Ni films on ferroelectric BaTiO3 substrates, Adv. Mater. 27, 1460 (2015).
  12. R. V. Chopdekar, M. Buzzi, C. Jenkins, E. Arenholz, F. Nolting, and Y. Takamura, Giant reversible anisotropy changes at room temperature in a (La,Sr)MnO3/Pb(Mg,Nb,Ti)O3 magneto-electric heterostructure, Sci. Rep. 6, 27501 (2016).
  13. Y. Gao, J. -M. Hu, C. T. Nelson, T. N. Yang, Y. Shen, L. Q. Chen, R. Ramesh, and C. W. Nan, Dynamic in situ observation of voltage-driven repeatable magnetization reversal at room temperature, Sci. Rep. 6, 23696 (2016).
  14. P. Li, Y. Zhao, S. Zhang, A. Chen, D. Li, J. Ma, Y. Liu, D. T. Pierce, J. Unguris, H. -G. Piao, et al., Spatially resolved ferroelectric domain-switching-controlled magnetism in Co40Fe40B20/Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)0.7Ti0.3O3 multiferroic heterostructure, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 9, 2642 (2017).
  15. R. Lo Conte, Z. Xiao, C. Chen, C. V. Stan, J. Gorchon, A. El-Ghazaly, M. E. Nowakowski, H. Sohn, A. Pattabi, A. Scholl, et al., Influence of nonuniform micron-scale strain distributions on the electrical reorientation of magnetic microstructures in a composite multiferroic heterostructure, Nano Lett. 18, 1952 (2018).
  16. R. V. Chopdekar, J. Heidler, C. Piamonteze, Y. Takamura, A. Scholl, S. Rusponi, H. Brune, L. J. Heyderman, and F. Nolting, Strain-dependent magnetic configurations in manganite-titanate heterostructures probed with soft X-ray techniques, Eur. Phys. J. B 86, 241 (2013).
  17. H. J. A. Molegraaf, J. Hoffman, C. A. F. Vaz, S. Gariglo, D. van der Marel, C. H. Ahn, and J. M. Triscone, Magnetoelectric effects in complex oxides with competing ground states, Adv. Mater. 21, 3470 (2009).
  18. V. Skumryev, V. Laukhin, I. Fina, X. Martí, F. Sánchez, M. Gospodinov, and J. Fontcuberta, Magnetization reversal by electric-field decoupling of magnetic and ferroelectric domain walls in multiferroic-based heterostructures, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 057206 (2011).
  19. J. T. Heron, J. L. Bosse, Q. He, Y. Gao, M. Trassin, L. Ye, J. D. Clarkson, C. Wang, J. Liu, S. Salahuddin, et al., Deterministic switching of ferromagnetism at room temperature using an electric field, Nature (London) 516, 370 (2014).
  20. W. Saenrang, B. A. Davidson, F. Maccherozzi, J. P. Podkaminer, J. Irwin, R. D. Johnson, J. W. Freeland, J. Íñiguez, J. L. Schad, K. Reierson, et al., Deterministic and robust room-temperature exchange coupling in monodomain multiferroic BiFeO3 heterostructures, Nat. Commun. 8, 1583 (2017).
  21. M. K. Lee, T. K. Nath, C. B. Eom, M. C. Smoak, and F. Tsui, Strain modification of epitaxial perovskite oxide thin films using structural transitions of ferroelectric BaTiO3 substrate, Appl. Phys. Lett. 77, 3547 (2000).
  22. F. D. Czeschka, S. Geprägs, M. Opel, S. T. B. Goennenwein, and R. Gross, Giant magnetic anisotropy changes in Sr2CrReO6 thin films on BaTiO3, Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 062508 (2009).
  23. G. H. Kwei, A. C. Lawson, S. J. L. Billinge, and S.-W. Cbeong, Structures of the ferroelectric phases of barium titanate, J. Phys. Chem. 97, 2368 (1993).
  24. W. Eerenstein, M. Wiora, J. L. Prieto, J. F. Scott, and N. D. Mathur, Giant sharp and persistent converse magnetoelectric effects in multiferroic epitaxial heterostructures, Nat. Mater. 6, 348 (2007).
  25. M. Fiebig, Th. Lottermoser, D. Fröhlich, A. V. Goltsev, and R. V. Pisarev, Observation of coupled magnetic and electric domains, Nature (London) 419, 818 (2002).
  26. T. Lottermoser, T. Lonkai, U. Amann, D. Hohlwein, J. Ihringer, and M. Fiebig, Magnetic phase control by an electric field, Nature (London) 430, 541 (2004).
  27. B. B. Van Aken, J. -P. Rivera, H. Schmid, and M. Fiebig, Observation of ferrotoroidic domains, Nature (London) 449, 702 (2007).
  28. M. Ghidini, R. Pellicelli, J. L. Prieto, X. Moya, J. Soussi, J. Briscoe, S. Dunn, and N. D. Mathur, Non-volatile electrically driven repeatable magnetization reversal with no applied magnetic field, Nat. Commun. 4, 1453 (2013).
  29. T. Zhao, A. Scholl, F. Zavaliche, K. Lee, M. Barry, A. Doran, M. P. Cruz, Y. H. Chu, C. Ederer, N. A. Spaldin, et al., Electrical control of antiferromagnetic domains in multiferroic BiFeO3 films at room temperature, Nat. Mater. 5, 823 (2006).
  30. Y. -H. Chu, L. W. Martin, M. B. Holcomb, M. Gajek, S. -J. Han, Q. He, N. Balke, C. -H. Yang, D. Lee, W. Hu, et al., Electric-field control of local ferromagnetism using a magnetoelectric multiferroic, Nat. Mater. 7, 478 (2008).
  31. M. Ghidini, F. Maccherozzi, S. S. Dhesi, and N. D. Mathur, XPEEM and MFM imaging of ferroic materials, Adv. Electron. Mater. 8, 2200162 (2022).
  32. S. J. Hibble, S. P. Cooper, A. C. Hannon, I. D. Fawcett, and M. Greenblatt, Local distortions in the colossal magnetoresistive manganates La0.70Ca0.30MnO3, La0.80Ca0.20MnO3 and La0.70Sr0.30MnO3 revealed by total neutron diffraction, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 11, 9221 (1999).
  33. X. Moya and N. D. Mathur, Caloric materials for cooling and heating, Science 370, 797 (2020).
  34. A. Alberca, N. M. Nemes, F. J. Mompean, N. Biskup, A. de Andres, C. Munuera, J. Tornos, C. Leon, A. Hernando, P. Ferrer, et al., Ferroelectric substrate effects on the magnetism, magnetotransport, and electroresistance of La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 thin films on BaTiO3, Phys. Rev. B 84, 134402 (2011).
  35. J. D. Burton and E. Y. Tsymbal, Prediction of electrically induced magnetic reconstruction at the manganite/ferroelectric interface, Phys. Rev. B 80, 174406 (2009).
  36. F. Maccherozzi, M. Ghidini, X. Moya, H. Elnaggar, N. D. Mathur, and S. S. Dhesi, Inverted shear-strain magnetoelastic coupling at the Fe/BaTiO3 interface from polarised x-ray imaging, Nat. Commun. 16, 8445 (2025).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Materials 10, 054401– Published 1 May, 2026
  • Received 3 October 2025
  • Accepted 31 March 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation