Issue |
Europhys. Lett.
Volume 58, Number 6, June 2002
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 864 - 870 | |
Section | Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/epl/i2002-00454-4 | |
Published online | 01 June 2002 |
Disorder-induced melting of the charge order in
thin films of
1
Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, Leiden University P.O. Box 9504, Leiden,
the Netherlands
2
Nijmegen High Field Magnet Laboratory Toernooiveld 1,
6525 ED Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Received:
20
December
2001
Accepted:
29
March
2002
We have studied the magnetic-field–induced melting of the charge
order in thin films of Pr0.5Ca0.5MnO3 (PCMO) films on
SrTiO3 (STO) by X-ray diffraction, magnetization and transport
measurement. At small thickness (25 nm) the films are under
tensile strain and the low-temperature melting fields are of the
order of 20 T or more, comparable to the bulk value. With
increasing film thickness the strain relaxes, which leads to a
strong decrease of the melting fields. For a film of 150 nm, with
in-plane and out-of-plane lattice parameters closer to the bulk
value, the melting field has reduced to 4 T at 50 K, with a strong
increase in the hysteretic behavior and also an increasing
fraction of ferromagnetic material. Strain relaxation by growth on
YBa2Cu3O or by post-annealing yields even
stronger reduction of the melting field. Apparently, strained
films behave bulk-like. Relaxation leads to an increasing suppression
of the CO state, presumably due to an atomic-scale disorder produced
by the relaxation process.
PACS: 73.50.Fq – High-field and nonlinear effects / 75.30.Vn – Colossal magnetoresistance
© EDP Sciences, 2002
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