Ultrathin manganite films grown by pulsed-plasma deposition

Abstract Ultrathin ferromagnetic films of La 0.7 Sr 0.3 MnO 3 were deposited by electron-beam ablation on standard SrTiO 3 (1 0 0) and NdGaO 3 (1 1 0) substrates. Even 4 nm films are metallic and develop spontaneous magnetization at room temperature: similar hysteresis cycles were measured by magneto optical Kerr effect (MOKE) in the longitudinal configuaration and by SQUID magnetometry. To the best of our knowledge the 4 nm thickness corresponds so far to the thinnest manganite film showing room-temperature ferromagnetism.