Strongly Coupled Magnetic and Electronic Transitions in Multivalent Strontium Cobaltites. Issue 1 (December 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lee, J.; Choi, Woo; Jeen, H.; Lee, H.-J.; Seo, J.; Nam, J.; Yeom, M.; Lee, H.
• Is Part Of: Scientific reports. Volume 7:Issue 1(2017)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 8
• Publication Date: 2017-12
• Subjects: Natural history -- Research -- Periodicals; Biology -- Research -- Periodicals; Physical sciences -- Research -- Periodicals; Earth sciences -- Research -- Periodicals; Environmental sciences -- Research -- Periodicals; 502.85
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-16246-z
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2045-2322

Abstract

Abstract The topotactic phase transition in SrCoOx (x = 2.5–3.0) makes it possible to reversibly transit between the two distinct phases, i.e. the brownmillerite SrCoO2.5 that is a room-temperature antiferromagnetic insulator (AFM-I) and the perovskite SrCoO3 that is a ferromagnetic metal (FM-M), owing to their multiple valence states. For the intermediatex values, the two distinct phases are expected to strongly compete with each other. With oxidation of SrCoO2.5, however, it has been conjectured that the magnetic transition is decoupled to the electronic phase transition, i.e., the AFM-to-FM transition occurs before the insulator-to-metal transition (IMT), which is still controversial. Here, we bridge the gap between the two-phase transitions by density-functional theory calculations combined with optical spectroscopy. We confirm that the IMT actually occurs concomitantly with the FM transition near the oxygen contentx = 2.75. Strong charge-spin coupling drives the concurrent IMT and AFM-to-FM transition, which fosters the near room-T magnetic transition characteristic. Ultimately, our study demonstrates that SrCoOx is an intriguingly rare candidate for inducing coupled magnetic and electronic transition via fast and reversible redox reactions.