- Zheng, LM;
- Wang, X Renshaw;
- Lü, WM;
- Li, CJ;
- Paudel, TR;
- Liu, ZQ;
- Huang, Z;
- Zeng, SW;
- Han, Kun;
- Chen, ZH;
- Qiu, XP;
- Li, MS;
- Yang, Shize;
- Yang, B;
- Chisholm, Matthew F;
- Martin, LW;
- Pennycook, SJ;
- Tsymbal, EY;
- Coey, JMD;
- Cao, WW
Complex-oxide materials exhibit physical properties that involve the interplay of charge and spin degrees of freedom. However, an ambipolar oxide that is able to exhibit both electron-doped and hole-doped ferromagnetism in the same material has proved elusive. Here we report ambipolar ferromagnetism in LaMnO3, with electron-hole asymmetry of the ferromagnetic order. Starting from an undoped atomically thin LaMnO3 film, we electrostatically dope the material with electrons or holes according to the polarity of a voltage applied across an ionic liquid gate. Magnetotransport characterization reveals that an increase of either electron-doping or hole-doping induced ferromagnetic order in this antiferromagnetic compound, and leads to an insulator-to-metal transition with colossal magnetoresistance showing electron-hole asymmetry. These findings are supported by density functional theory calculations, showing that strengthening of the inter-plane ferromagnetic exchange interaction is the origin of the ambipolar ferromagnetism. The result raises the prospect of exploiting ambipolar magnetic functionality in strongly correlated electron systems.