An overview of SrRuO3-based heterostructures for spintronic and topological phenomena

SrRuO3 (SRO)-based heterostructures have attracted much attention for potential applications such as electrodes, oxide spintronics, topological electronics and electrocatalytic function mainly due to the strong spin–orbit coupling, itinerant ferromagnetism with 4d electrons, high metallic conductivity, perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and rich oxygen octahedral distortion of SRO. Here, this work aims to offer a timely and systematic review on SRO-based heterostructures for its emerging opportunities in oxide spintronic and topological electronic applications. We first present a brief summary of the current status in SRO-based heterostructures and describe the motivations of this review. We then briefly review the surface and interface modulation in SRO-based heterostructures, including oxygen octahedral distortions (antiferrodistortive mode and ferroelectric mode) engineering and ion defect engineering. In the third part, we discuss the spin-charge interconversion phenomena in SRO-based heterostructures, covering the inverse spin Hall effect and current-induced spin-orbit torques. Particularly, in the fourth part, we discuss the emergent topological Hall effect and underlying mechanism in SRO-based heterostructures, including the two-channel anomalous Hall effect and Berry phase manipulation. The fifth part presents the magnetic Weyl fermions and its electric-field control of SRO films. We finally conclude with a discussion of challenges and prospects of SRO-based heterostructures, which provides a guidance for exploring novel physical properties and designing multifunctional devices based on SRO.