Antiferromagnetic metal phase in an electron-doped rare-earth nickelate

• DOI: 10.1038/s41567-022-01907-2
• Publication Date: 2023-01-30T17:04:11Z
• Authors: Qi Song; Spencer Doyle; Grace A. Pan; Ismail El Baggari; Dan Ferenc Segedin; Denisse Córdova C...; Johanna Nordlander; Christian Tzschas...; James R. Ehrets; Zubia Hasan; Hesham El-Sherif; Jyoti Krishna; Chase Hanson; Harrison LaBollita; Aaron Bostwick; Chris Jozwiak; Eli Rotenberg; Su-Yang Xu; Alessandra Lanzara; Alpha T. N’Diaye; Colin A. Heikes; Yaohua Liu; Hanjong Paik; Charles M. Brooks; Betül Pamuk; John T. Heron; Padraic Shafer; William D. Ratcliff; Antia S. Botana; Luca Moreschini; Julia A. Mundy
• Keywords: Condensed Matter - Strongly Correlated Electrons; Condensed Matter - Materials Science; Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el); General Physics and Astronomy; 500; Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci); FOS: Physical sciences; 02 engineering and technology; 0210 nano-technology; 530; 7. Clean energy

Long viewed as passive elements, antiferromagnetic materials have emerged as promising candidates for spintronic devices due to their insensitivity to external fields and potential for high-speed switching. Recent work exploiting spin and orbital effects has identified ways to electrically control and probe the spins in metallic antiferromagnets, especially in noncollinear or noncentrosymmetric spin structures. The rare earth nickelate NdNiO3 is known to be a noncollinear antiferromagnet where the onset of antiferromagnetic ordering is concomitant with a transition to an insulating state. Here, we find that for low electron doping, the magnetic order on the nickel site is preserved while electronically a new metallic phase is induced. We show that this metallic phase has a Fermi surface that is mostly gapped by an electronic reconstruction driven by the bond disproportionation. Furthermore, we demonstrate the ability to write to and read from the spin structure via a large zero-field planar Hall effect. Our results expand the already rich phase diagram of the rare-earth nickelates and may enable spintronics applications in this family of correlated oxides.<br/>25 pages, 4 figures<br/>