A Minimal tight-binding model for ferromagnetic canted bilayer manganites

Abstract

Half-metallicity in materials has been a subject of extensive research due to its potential for applications in spintronics. Ferromagnetic manganites have been seen as a good candidate, and aside from a small minority-spin pocket observed in La2-2xSr1+2xMn2O7 (x = 0.38), transport measurements show that ferromagnetic manganites essentially behave like half metals. Here we develop robust tight-binding models to describe the electronic band structure of the majority as well as minority spin states of ferromagnetic, spin-canted antiferromagnetic, and fully antiferromagnetic bilayer manganites. Both the bilayer coupling between the MnO2 planes and the mixing of the |x2-y2 > and |3z2-r2 > Mn 3d orbitals play an important role in the subtle behavior of the bilayer splitting. Effects of kz dispersion are included.