Magnetotransport at Domain Walls in ${\mathrm{BiFeO}}_{3}$

Magnetotransport at Domain Walls in ${BiFeO}_{3}$

Q. He, C.-H. Yeh, J.-C. Yang, G. Singh-Bhalla, C.-W. Liang, P.-W. Chiu, G. Catalan, L. W. Martin, Y.-H. Chu, J. F. Scott, and R. Ramesh

Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 067203 – Published 9 February 2012

Abstract

Domain walls in multiferroics can exhibit intriguing behaviors that are significantly different from the bulk of the material. We investigate strong magnetoresistance in domain walls of the model multiferroic ${BiFeO}_{3}$ by probing ordered arrays of 109° domain walls with temperature- and magnetic-field-dependent transport. We observe temperature-dependent variations in the transport mechanism and magnetoresistances as large as 60%. These results suggest that by locally breaking the symmetry of a material, such as at domain walls and structural interfaces, one can induce emergent behavior with properties that deviate significantly from the bulk.

Received 4 August 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.067203

Authors & Affiliations

Q. He^1,2, C.-H. Yeh³, J.-C. Yang⁴, G. Singh-Bhalla¹, C.-W. Liang¹, P.-W. Chiu³, G. Catalan⁵, L. W. Martin⁶, Y.-H. Chu^1,4,7,*, J. F. Scott⁸, and R. Ramesh^1,7

¹Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
²Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
³Department of Electrical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan
⁴Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, HsinChu 30010, Taiwan
⁵Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avanats (ICREA) and Centre d’Investigació en Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (CIN2), Campus Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain
⁶Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
⁷Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
⁸Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics, Cambridge University, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom