Probing the magnetic dichroisms of emergent interfacial magnetic order in rare-earth nickelate / titanate superlattices

Our recent investigation of LaNiO3/LaTiO3 superlattices using resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) and muon spin rotation (uSR) has revealed the emergence of a novel interfacial quasi-2D magnetic order. However, the microscopic details of this magnetic order, such as its type (ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic) and orientation are still unknown. Its magnetic transition temperature of 18 K measured by uSR is also very low compared to its high magnon energy of ~100 meV measured by RIXS (corresponding to a theoretical transition temperature of >1000 K). Here, we propose to do a systematic study of this LaNiO3/ LaTiO3 using x-ray magnetic linear and circular dichroism spectroscopies (XMLD and XMCD) to determine the type and orientation of its interfacial magnetic order and verify its magnetic transition temperature.