Emergent interlayer magnetic order via strain-induced orthorhombic distortion in the 5 d Mott insulator Sr 2 IrO 4
In this letter, we report a La 2 CuO 4 -like interlayer antiferromagnetic order in Sr2IrO4 films with large orthorhombic distortion (>1.5%). The biaxial lattice strain in epitaxial heterostructures of Sr 2 IrO 4 /Ca 3 Ru 2 O 7 lowers the crystal symmetry of Sr 2 IrO 4 from tetragonal ($C_4$) to orthorhombic ($C_2$), guiding the Ir $5d J_{text{eff}}$ = 1/2 pseudospin moment parallel to the elongated b axis via magnetic anisotropy. From resonant x-ray scattering experiments, we observed an antiferromagnetic order in the orthorhombic Sr 2 IrO 4 film whose interlayer stacking pattern is inverted from that of the tetragonal Sr 2 IrO 4 crystal. This interlayer stacking is similar to that of the orthorhombic La 2 CuO 4 , implying that the asymmetric interlayer exchange interactions between $\textit{a}$ and $\textit{b}$ directions exceed the anisotropic interlayer pseudodipolar interaction. Our result suggests that strain-induced distortion can provide a delicate knob for tuning the long-range magnetic order in quasi-two-dimensional systems by evoking the competition between the interlayer exchange coupling and the pseudodipolar interaction.