Antiferromagnetic metal phases in double perovskites having strong antisite defect concentrations

Abstract

Recently an antiferromagnetic metal phase has been proposed in double perovskites materials like Sr${}_2$FeMoO${}_6$ (SFMO), when electron doped. This material has been found to change from half-metallic ferromagnet to antiferromagnetic metal (AFM) upon La-overdoping. The original proposition of such an AFM phase was made for clean samples, but the experimental realization of La-overdoped SFMO has been found to contain a substantial fraction of antisite defects. A phase segregation into alternate Fe and Mo rich regions was observed. In this paper we propose a possible scenario in which this type of strong antisite concentration can still result in an antiferromagnetic metal phase, by a novel hopping driven mechanism. Using variational calculations, we find that proliferation of such phase segregated domain regions can also result in the stabilization of an A-type AFM over the G-type AFM based on kinetic energy considerations.