The x-ray structural, resistive, magnetic, and Mn55 NMR methods are used to investigate the ceramic magnetoresistive lanthanum manganite perovskites La0.6Sr0.2Mn1,2−xFexO3 (x=0, 0.02, 0.05, and 0.1) annealed at 1170 and 1500°C. It is found that increasing the Fe content decreases the metal-semiconductor phase transition temperature Tms and the Curie temperature TC, and increases the peak of the magnetoresistive effect near these phase transitions and results in growth of the peak at low temperatures, where the magnetoresistive effect is due to tunneling transitions of carriers between crystallites. The wide asymmetric Mn55 NMR spectrum, whose resonance frequency shifts with increasing x to lower frequencies, confirms the high-frequency electron-hole exchange between the Mn3+ and Mn4+ ions and the high degree of lattice imperfections, including not only vacancies but also clusters. The hysteresis in the field dependences of the magnetization at 4.2K is due to a change in the fraction of low-spin Mn2+ in clusters, whose magnetism appears below 42K. The increase of the activation energy with increasing Fe content is explained by the influence of these ions on the structural defect density, the charge carrier concentration, and the electron-hole exchange between heterovalent manganese ions in B positions.
We report a study of the electron tunneling transport in point-contact junctions formed by a sharp Ag tip and two different highly correlated oxides, namely, a magnetoresistive manganite La 0.66 Ca 0.34 MnO 3 and a superconducting cuprate LaBa 2 Cu 3 O 7-x . Strong chemical modifications of the oxide surface (supposedly, oxygen ion displacements) caused by applying high voltages to the junctions have been observed. This effect is believed to be responsible for an enormous growth of inelastic tunneling processes across a transition region that reveals itself in an overall «V»-shaped conductance background, with a strong temperature impact. The mechanism of the inelastic scattering is ascribed to charge transmission across magnetically active interfaces between two electrodes forming the junction. To support the latter statement, we have fabricated planar junctions between Cr and Ag films with an antiferromagnetic chromium oxide Cr 2 O 3 as a potential barrier and at high-bias voltages have found an identical conductance trend with a similar temperature effect.
We report on our recent electron-tunneling studies of bulk manganite samples that provide important information about the structure of the near-surface layers of the material and the nature of the charge transport across them. It is shown that the even part of the differential conductance of contacts formed by a metallic injector with the surface of a manganite is a power function of the voltage bias. High voltages applied to the sample are found to locally modify the conductance of the degraded native surface layer. Experiments aimed to monitor the force applied to a metal tip pressed into the surface of a manganite prove the presence of sub-surface layers with properties significantly different from those near the surface. Experimental data are analyzed and interpreted within the Glazman–Matveev theory taking into account inelastic tunneling through two metallic "drops" inside the insulating barrier.
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