1301.5681 (Gang Chen et al.)

Ferromagnetism in itinerant two-dimensional t2g systems    [PDF]

Gang Chen, Leon Balents

Motivated by the recent indications of ferromagnetism in transition metal oxide heterostructures, we propose a possible mechanism to generate ferromagnetism for itinerant t2g systems in two spatial dimensions that does not rely on the coupling between local moments and conduction electrons. We particularly emphasize the orbital nature of different bands and show that, when the Fermi level lies near the bottom of the upper bands, the quasi-one-dimensional nature of the upper bands leads to a large magnetic susceptibility, and thus the ferromagnetic inter-orbital Hund's coupling can easily polarize the upper bands and drive the system into a ferromagnetic state. We discuss the connection between our mechanism with several itinerant t2g systems that may have ferromagnetic instabilities.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.5681