- Cui, Zhangzhang;
- Grutter, Alexander J;
- Zhou, Hua;
- Cao, Hui;
- Dong, Yongqi;
- Gilbert, Dustin A;
- Wang, Jingyuan;
- Liu, Yi-Sheng;
- Ma, Jiaji;
- Hu, Zhenpeng;
- Guo, Jinghua;
- Xia, Jing;
- Kirby, Brian J;
- Shafer, Padraic;
- Arenholz, Elke;
- Chen, Hanghui;
- Zhai, Xiaofang;
- Lu, Yalin
Engineering magnetic anisotropy in two-dimensional systems has enormous scientific and technological implications. The uniaxial anisotropy universally exhibited by two-dimensional magnets has only two stable spin directions, demanding 180° spin switching between states. We demonstrate a previously unobserved eightfold anisotropy in magnetic SrRuO3 monolayers by inducing a spin reorientation in (SrRuO3)1/(SrTiO3) N superlattices, in which the magnetic easy axis of Ru spins is transformed from uniaxial 〈001〉 direction (N < 3) to eightfold 〈111〉 directions (N ≥ 3). This eightfold anisotropy enables 71° and 109° spin switching in SrRuO3 monolayers, analogous to 71° and 109° polarization switching in ferroelectric BiFeO3. First-principle calculations reveal that increasing the SrTiO3 layer thickness induces an emergent correlation-driven orbital ordering, tuning spin-orbit interactions and reorienting the SrRuO3 monolayer easy axis. Our work demonstrates that correlation effects can be exploited to substantially change spin-orbit interactions, stabilizing unprecedented properties in two-dimensional magnets and opening rich opportunities for low-power, multistate device applications.