X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism Study of La(1 - x)SrxMnO3 Thin Films

The perovskite manganite La_{(1 - x)}Sr_xMnO₃ (LSMO) has attracted great attention recently due to its fundamental physics and potential applications in spintronics and data storage. In this work, we report a temperature-dependent x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) study of epitaxial LSMO thin films deposited on orthorhombic NdGaO₃ (NGO) substrates grown by the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) method. Small angle x-ray reflectivity and atomic force microscopy (AFM) results confirmed good epitaxial quality. XMCD measurements were performed at beamline 4-ID-C of the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory. XMCD spectra were taken in a 0.5 tesla field at temperatures ranging from 5 K to 180 K after the 0.5 tesla field cool. The total electron yield absorption spectra showed the oxide state characteristics of Mn, and the shapes of the Mn and O dichroism spectra change with temperature.

This work is supported by NSF DMR-1053854. Work at Argonne National Laboratory was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract DE-AC02-06CH11357.