No Arabic abstract
The coexistence of ferromagnetism and metallic conduction in doped manganites has long been explained by a double-exchange model in which the ferromagnetic exchange arises from the carrier hopping. We evaluate the zero-temperature spin stiffness D(0) and the Curie temperature T_{C} on the basis of the double-exchange model using the measured values of the bare bandwidth W and the Hunds rule coupling J_{H}. The calculated D(0) and T_{C} values are too small compared with the observed ones even in the absence of interactions. A realistic onsite interorbital Coulomb repulsion can reduce D(0) substantially in the case of a 2-orbital model. Furthermore, experiment shows that D(0) is simply proportional to x in La_{1-x}Sr_{x}MnO_{3} system, independent of whether the ground state is a ferromagnetic insulator or metal. These results strongly suggest that the ferromagnetism in manganites does not originate from the double-exchange interaction. On the other hand, an alternative model based on the d-p exchange can semi-quantitatively explain the ferromagnetism of doped manganites at low temperatures.
We have studied structural, magnetic and transport properties as a function of temperature and magnetic field in the electron doped manganite YxCa1-xMnO3, for 0<x<0.25. We found that in the paramagnetic regime, the magnetic susceptibility, chi, deviates substantially from a Curie-Weiss law for x>0. With a simple model where antiferromagnetic (AF) superexchange and ferromagnetic (FM) double exchange (DE) compete, we fit the experimental chi(x, T) obtaining parameter values which indicate that the FM-DE interaction is about twice as intense as the AF interaction. In the ordered phase, the H-dependence of the magnetization M(x,T) is explained in terms of magnetic polarons. We propose that the displacement of the eg electrons (in the G-type AF background) causes the alignement of the polaron with H. Signatures of polaronic behavior were also found in the x and T dependence of the electric resistivity.
Recently, based on the refined crystal structure of Pr0.6Ca0.4MnO3 from neutron diffraction, Daoud-Aladine et al.[PRL89,97205(2002)] have proposed a new ground state structure for the half-doped manganites R0.5Ca0.5MnO3, where R is a trivalent ion like Bi,La,Pr,Sm or Y. Their proposal describes the CE magnetic structure attributed to these materials as an arrangement of dimers along the ferromagnetic Mn zig-zag chains that form it. However, the dimers proposal is in conflict with the Goodenough-Kanamori-Anderson rules, which give a coherent description of many transition metal insulating compounds and predict the coexistence of Mn3+ and Mn4+ ions in equal parts in the half-doped manganites. On the other hand, Rivadulla et al.[PRB 66, 174432 (2002)] have studied several single crystal samples of half-doped manganites and propose a phase diagram in terms of the tolerance factor which contains both types of structures. In the present work we have calculated the magnon dispersion relations for the CE magnetic structure, arising for each type of proposal: the charge ordered and the dimer phases, respectively. We consider a three-dimensional unit cell containing 16 spins, and compare the magnetic excitations along different paths in the first Brillouin zone. We conclude that measurement of the magnon dispersion relations should allow a clear distinction between the two proposals, predicting qualitative differences arising along specific directions of propagation in the first Brillouin zone.
We report here the magnetic properties of electron-doped Sm1-xCaxMnO3 manganites with the doping level of x=0.91. Exchange bias effect has been observed in Sm0.09Ca0.91MnO3 nanomanagnites system and can be tuned by the strength of cooling magnetic field (Hcool). The values of exchange bias parameter i.e. exchange bias fields (HE), coercivity (HC), remanence asymmetry (ME) and magnetic coercivity (MC) are found to strongly depend on Hcool. The larger effective magnetic moments and deviation of inverse susceptibility (c{hi}-1) from Curie-Weiss law indicate the possible existence of Griffiths phase (GP). A rigorous measurement of linear and nonlinear ac and dc magnetic susceptibility in nanomanganites proves the existence of Griffiths phase (GP) in the temperature range TC<T<TG (Griffiths temperature). The effect of size reduction on exchange bias effect and GP is addressed here. The enhancement of exchange bias effect and GP has been argued to be due to the modification of the phase separated state on size reduction.
We review our recent x-ray scattering studies of charge and orbital order in doped manganites, with specific emphasis on the role of orbital correlations in Pr_1-xCa_xMnO_3. For x=0.25, we find an orbital structure indistinguishable from the undoped structure with long range orbital order at low temperatures. For dopings 0.3<x<0.5, we find scattering consistent with a charge and orbitally ordered CE-type structure. While in each case the charge order peaks are resolution limited, the orbital order exhibits only short range correlations. We report the doping dependence of the correlation length and discuss the connection between the orbital correlations and the finite magnetic correlation length observed on the Mn^3+ sublattice with neutron scattering techniques. The physical origin of these domains, which appear to be isotropic, remains unclear. We find that weak orbital correlations persist well above the phase transitions, with a correlation length of 1-2 lattice constants at high temperatures. Significantly, we observe similar correlations at high temperatures in La_0.7Ca_0.3MnO_3, which does not have an orbitally ordered ground state, and we conclude that such correlations are robust to variations in the relative strength of the electron-phonon coupling.
We employ time-resolved resonant x-ray diffraction to study the melting of charge order and the associated insulator-metal transition in the doped manganite Pr$_{0.5}$Ca$_{0.5}$MnO$_3$ after resonant excitation of a high-frequency infrared-active lattice mode. We find that the charge order reduces promptly and highly nonlinearly as function of excitation fluence. Density functional theory calculations suggest that direct anharmonic coupling between the excited lattice mode and the electronic structure drive these dynamics, highlighting a new avenue of nonlinear phonon control.