Electrical and magnetic properties of epitaxial (SrMnO3)n/(LaMnO3)2n superlattices

We report the magnetic and transport properties of SrMnO3n / LaMnO32nm superlattices grown by molecular-beam epitaxy on 100 SrTiO3 with periodicities n=1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 16. Although the superlattice constituents, LaMnO3 and SrMnO3, are both antiferromagnetic insulators, for small n n2 the superlattices behave like the ferromagnetic conductor La0.67Sr0.33MnO3. As n increases, the magnetic properties become dominated by the LaMnO3 layers, but the electronic transport properties continue to be controlled by the interfaces.