Strain-driven elastic and orbital-ordering effects on thickness-dependent properties of manganite thin films

Abstract

We report on the structural and magnetic characterization of (110) and (001) La2/3Ca1/3MnO3 (LCMO) epitaxial thin films simultaneously grown on (110) and (001)SrTiO3 substrates, with thicknesses t varying between 8 nm and 150 nm. It is found that while the in-plane interplanar distances of the (001) films are strongly clamped to those of the substrate and the films remain strained up to well above t=100 nm, the (110) films relax much earlier. Accurate determination of the in-plane and out-of-plane interplanar distances has allowed concluding that in all cases the unit cell volume of the manganite reduces gradually when increasing thickness, approaching the bulk value. It is observed that the magnetic properties (Curie temperature and saturation magnetization) of the (110) films are significantly improved compared to those of (001) films. These observations, combined with 55Mn-nuclear magnetic resonance data and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, signal that the depression of the magnetic properties of the more strained (001)LCMO films is not caused by an elastic deformation of the perovskite lattice but rather due to the electronic and chemical phase separation caused by the substrate-induced strain. On the contrary, the thickness dependence of the magnetic properties of the less strained (110)LCMO films are simply described by the elastic deformation of the manganite lattice. We will argue that the different behavior of (001) and (110)LCMO films is a consequence of the dissimilar electronic structure of these interfaces.

16 pages, 15 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Thickness dependent magnetotransport in ultra-thin manganite films
• The effect of substrate induced strain on the charge-ordering transition in Nd_{0.5}Sr_{0.5}MnO_{3} thin films
• Nanoscale Suppression of Magnetization at Atomically Assembled Manganite Interfaces
• Effects of uniaxial strain in LaMnO_3
• Electronic Phase Separation in Manganite/Insulator Interfaces

Cited by in corpus (11)

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• Effect of strain on the orbital and magnetic ordering of manganite thin films and their interface with an insulator
• Magnetoresistance in an all-manganite heterostructure
• X-ray interference effects on the determination of structural data in ultrathin La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 epitaxial thin films
• Orientation dependence of the Schottky barrier height for La${}_0.6$Sr${}_0.4$MnO${}_3$/SrTiO${}_3$ heterojunctions
• Raman spectra and Magnetization of all-ferromagnetic superlattices grown on (110) oriented SrTiO3
• Giant Optical Polarization Rotation Induced by Spin-Orbit Coupling in Polarons
• The temperature-dependent magnetization profile across an epitaxial bilayer of ferromagnetic La2/3Ca1/3MnO3 and superconducting YBa2Cu3O7-d
• Structural and electronic properties of epitaxial YBaCuO/LaCaMnO bilayers grown on SrTiO${}_3$ (110) substrates
• Ferromagnetic bubble clusters in Y${}_{0.67}$Ca${}_{0.33}$MnO${}_3$ thin films