Studies on Colossal Magnetoresistance Behaviour of Pr0.6Sr0.4MnO3/Pr0.5Ca0.5MnO3 Heterostructure Films

Interfacial interaction driven enhancement in the colossal magnetoresistance property of ultra-thin heterostructure of Pr0.6Sr0.4MnO3 in proximity with Pr0.5Ca0.5MnO3

“…For T = 190 K, 200 K, and 210 K, the hysteresis is negligible since the temperature range is close to its T Curie . It is also observed that the magnetic saturation is not reached even under an applied field of 7 T. The absence of magnetic saturation even up to 7 T confirms the presence of antiferromagnetism coexisting in the heterostructure, which may be arising from the AFM state of the PCMO, which failed to get annihilated and is persisting even at high temperatures 29 . The heterostructure exhibits a symmetric hysteresis www.nature.com/scientificreports/ loop at low temperatures for T = 10 K and 100 K, and the coercive field is found to increase with the decrease in the temperature as evident from the inset (i) of Fig.…”

“…The ultra-thin heterostructure comprises nano-grains, as inferred from SEM micrographs. The observed magnetization behaviour can be explained qualitatively by considering the competition between the magneto-crystalline anisotropy energy and the Zeeman energy in these crystallites 29 . This divergence of ZFC and FC curves shows that all the domains are not aligned in the ultra-thin heterostructure.…”

“…T MIT is found to shift from 215 K at H = 0 T to 280 K at H = 10 T in the ultra-thin PSMO/ PCMO/STO heterostructure. From Table 1, it is evident that these shifts are more prominent in the ultra-thin heterostructure than in the thicker heterostructure 29 , the single layer thin film and the bulk 12 . Thus, the signatures of proximity effect can be perceived in the ultra-thin heterostructure, wherein a magnetic field-induced increase in the FM metallic phase in PSMO can trigger electrical conduction in the interfacial layers of PCMO www.nature.com/scientificreports/ due to the magnetic proximity effect, thereby shifting the T MIT at higher fields to near room temperatures.…”

“…The high-temperature insulating regime was fit with the conduction mechanism pertaining to the adiabatic small polaron hopping model (ASPHM) given by Eq. ( 1), where, A is a constant of proportionality, E A is the activation energy, k B is the Boltzmann constant, and T is the absolute temperature 12,29,33 .…”

“…The interfacial interactions of two competing ground states (FM metallic and CO insulating states) in the bilayered/multilayered heterostructures of two manganites with different physical properties have been reported to enhance the CMR effect [24][25][26][27][28] . Our previous report on heterostructural bilayer film of Pr 0.6 Sr 0.4 MnO 3 and Pr 0.5 Ca 0.5 MnO 3 with each layer having a thickness of 300 nm exhibited an enhancement in the CMR property near room temperature 29 .…”