Fig. 2. Orbital polarization modulated by unidirectional structural distortions.

(A). Schematic of the scattering geometry for XAS and XLD measurements with the x-ray beam aligned parallel to the (100) and (010) scattering planes. (B). XAS of an LCO film for the Co L-edge measured by the out-of-plane (I_oop, solid lines, E_oop//[001]) and in-plane (I_ip, dashed lines, E_ip//[100] or [010]) linearly polarized x-ray beams. (C) XLD of an LCO film for the Co L-edges. The XLD spectra indicate that the hole occupancy in the ${\mathrm{d}}_{3{\mathit{z}}^2-{\mathit{r}}^2}$ orbital is larger than that of the ${\mathrm{d}}_{{\mathit{x}}^2-{\mathit{y}}^2}$ orbital for both measuring configurations. The degree of orbital polarization in the (010) plane is about two times larger than that in the (100) plane, indicating a clear anisotropic orbital occupancy induced by 1D twin domains. All spectra are collected and repeated more than four times with bulk-sensitive FY detection mode at 10 K.