Gate-tuned anomalous Hall effect driven by Rashba splitting in intermixed LaAlO3/GdTiO3/SrTiO3

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 10726 - 10
• Main Authors: Lebedev, N., Stehno, M., Rana, A., Reith, P., Gauquelin, N., Verbeeck, J., Hilgenkamp, H., Brinkman, A., Aarts, J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 21.05.2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/301; 639/301/119/544; Electromagnetism; Humanities and Social Sciences; Low temperature; Magnetic fields; Magnetism; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-89767-3

The Anomalous Hall Effect (AHE) is an important quantity in determining the properties and understanding the behaviour of the two-dimensional electron system forming at the interface of SrTiO 3 -based oxide heterostructures. The occurrence of AHE is often interpreted as a signature of ferromagnetism, but it is becoming more and more clear that also paramagnets may contribute to AHE. We studied the influence of magnetic ions by measuring intermixed LaAlO 3 /GdTiO 3 /SrTiO 3 at temperatures below 10 K. We find that, as function of gate voltage, the system undergoes a Lifshitz transition while at the same time an onset of AHE is observed. However, we do not observe clear signs of ferromagnetism. We argue the AHE to be due to the change in Rashba spin-orbit coupling at the Lifshitz transition and conclude that also paramagnetic moments which are easily polarizable at low temperatures and high magnetic fields lead to the presence of AHE, which needs to be taken into account when extracting carrier densities and mobilities.