Cooperative Jahn-Teller Effect and Electron-Phonon Coupling in La1−xAxMnO3La_{1-x}A_xMnO_3

A classical model for the lattice distortions of \lax is derived and, in a mean field approximation, solved. The model is based on previous work by Kanamori and involves localized Mn d-electrons (which induce tetragonal distortions of the oxygen octahedra surrounding the Mn) and localized holes (which induce breathing distortions). Parameters are determined by fitting to the room temperature structure of $LaMnO_3$. The energy gained by formation of a local lattice distortion is found to be large, most likely $\approx 0.6$ eV per site, implying a strong electorn-phonon coupling and supporting polaronic models of transport in the doped materials. The structural transition is shown to be of the order-disorder type; the rapid x-dependence of the transition temperature is argued to occur because added holes produce a "random" field which misaligns the nearby sites.Comment: 24 pages. No figures. One Table. Late

Magnetic Phase Transition of the Perovskite-type Ti Oxides

Properties and mechanism of the magnetic phase transition of the perovskite-type Ti oxides, which is driven by the Ti-O-Ti bond angle distortion, are studied theoretically by using the effective spin and pseudo-spin Hamiltonian with strong Coulomb repulsion. It is shown that the A-type antiferromagnetic(AFM(A)) to ferromagnetic(FM) phase transition occurs as the Ti-O-Ti bond angle is decreased. Through this phase transition, the orbital state is hardly changed so that the spin-exchange coupling along the c-axis changes nearly continuously from positive to negative and takes approximately zero at the phase boundary. The resultant strong two-dimensionality in the spin coupling causes a rapid suppression of the critical temperature as is observed experimentally.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Orbital dynamics: The origin of the anomalous optical spectra in ferromagnetic manganites

We discuss the role of orbital degeneracy in the transport properties of perovskite manganites, focusing in particular on the optical conductivity in the metallic ferromagnetic phase at low temperatures. Orbital degeneracy and strong correlations are described by an orbital t-J model which we treat in a slave-boson approach. Employing the memory-function formalism we calculate the optical conductivity, which is found to exhibit a broad incoherent component extending up to bare bandwidth accompanied by a strong suppression of the Drude weight. Further, we calculate the constant of T-linear specific heat. Our results are in overall agreement with experiment and suggest low-energy orbital fluctuations as the origin of the strongly correlated nature of the metallic phase of manganites.Comment: To appear in: Phys. Rev. B 58 (Rapid Communications), 1 November 199

Magnetic and Orbital States and Their Phase Transition of the Perovskite-Type Ti Oxides: Strong Coupling Approach

The properties and mechanism of the magnetic phase transition of the perovskite-type Ti oxides, which is driven by the Ti-O-Ti bond angle distortion, are studied theoretically by using the effective spin and pseudospin Hamiltonian with strong Coulomb repulsion. It is shown that the A-type antiferromagnetic (AFM(A)) to ferromagnetic (FM) phase transition occurs as the Ti-O-Ti bond angle is decreased. Through this phase transition, the orbital state changes only little whereas the spin-exchange coupling along the c-axis is expected to change from positive to negative nearly continuously and approaches zero at the phase boundary. The resultant strong two-dimensionality in the spin coupling causes rapid suppression of the critical temperature, as observed experimentally. It may induce large quantum fluctuations in this region.Comment: 13 pages, 15 figure

Optical spectral weights and the ferromagnetic transition temperature of CMR manganites: relevance of double-exchange to real materials

We present a thorough and quantitative comparison of double-exchange models to experimental data on the colossal magnetoresistance manganese perovskites. Our results settle a controversy by showing that physics beyond double-exchange is important even in La$_{0.7}$Sr$_{0.3}$MnO$_3$, which has been regarded as a conventional double-exchange system. We show that the crucial quantity for comparisons of different calculations to each other and to data is the conduction band kinetic energy $K$, which is insensitive to the details of the band structure and can be experimentally determined from optical conductivity measurements. The seemingly complicated dependence of $T_c$ on the Hund's coupling $J$ and carrier concentration $n$ is shown to reflect the variation of $K$ with $J$, $n$ and temperature. We present results for the optical conductivity which allow interpretation of experiments and show that a feature previously interpreted in terms of the Hund's coupling was misidentified. We also correct minor errors in the phase diagram presented in previous work.Comment: 13 pages, 7 eps figure

Band-width control in a perovskite-type 3d^1 correlated metal Ca_1-xSr_xVO_3. II. Optical spectroscopy investigation

Optical conductivity spectra of single crystals of Ca_1-xSr_xVO_3 have been studied to elucidate how the electronic behavior depends on the strength of the electron correlation without changing the nominal number of electrons per vanadium atom. The effective mass deduced by the analysis of the Drude-like contribution do not show critical enhancement, even though the system is close to the Mott transition. Besides the Drude-like contribution, two anomalous features were observed in the optical conductivity spectra of the intraband transition within the 3d band. These features can be assigned to transitions involving the incoherent and coherent bands near the Fermi level. The large spectral weight redistribution in this system, however, does not involve a large mass enhancement.Comment: 12 pages in a Phys. Rev. B camera-ready format with 16 EPS figures embedded. LaTeX 2.09 source file using "camera.sty" and "prbplug.sty" provided by N. Shirakawa. For OzTeX (Macintosh), use "ozfig.sty" instead of "psfig.sty". "ozfig.sty" can be also obtained by e-mail request to N. Shirakawa: . Submitted to Phys. Rev. B. See "Part I (by Inoue et al.)" at cond-mat/980107

Competition between ferromagnetic and charge-orbital ordered phases in Pr1−x_{1-x}Cax_{x}MnO3_3 for xx=1/4, 3/8, and 1/2

Spin, charge, and orbital structures in models for doped manganites are studied by a combination of analytic mean-field and numerical relaxation techniques. At realistic values for the electron-phonon and antiferromagnetic $t_{2g}$ spin couplings, a competition between a ferromagnetic (FM) phase and a charge-orbital ordered (COO) insulating state is found for $x$=1/4, 3/8, and 1/2, as experimentally observed in Pr$_{1-x}$Ca$_{x}$MnO$_3$ for $x$=0.3$\sim$0.5. The theoretical predictions for the spin-charge-orbital ordering pattern are compared with experiments. The FM-COO energy difference is surprisingly small for the densities studied, result compatible with the presence of a robust colossal-magnetoresistive effect in Pr$_{1-x}$Ca$_{x}$MnO$_3$ in a large density interval.Comment: 4 pages, Revtex, with 2 figures embedded in the text. Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Relative contributions of lattice distortion and orbital ordering to resonant x-ray scattering in manganites

We investigated the origin of the energy splitting observed in the resonant x-ray scattering (RXS) in manganites. Using thin film samples with controlled lattice parameters and orbital states at a fixed orbital filling, we estimated that the contribution of the interatomic Coulomb interaction relative to the Jahn-Teller mechanism is insignificant and at most 0.27. This indicates that RXS probes mainly Jahn-Teller distortion in manganites.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Electron Correlation and Jahn-Teller Interaction in Manganese Oxides

The interplay between the electron repulsion $U$ and the Jahn-Teller electron-phonon interation $E_{LR}$ is studied with a large $d$ model for the ferromagnetic state of the manganese oxides. These two interactions collaborate to induce the local isospin (orbital) moments and reduce the bandwidth $B$. Especially the retardation effect of the Jahn-Teller phonon with the frequency $\Omega$ is effective to reduce $B$, but the strong $\Omega$-dependence occurs even when the Coulombic interaction is dominating ($U >> E_{LR}$) as long as $E_{LR} > \Omega$. The phonon spectrum consists of two components, i.e., the temperature independent sharp peak at $\omega = {\tilde \Omega} = \Omega [(U +4 E_{LR})/U]^{1/2}$ and that corresponding to the Kondo peak. These results compared with the experiments suggest that $\Omega <E_{LR} <U$ in the metallic manganese oxides.Comment: REVTE

Optical Conductivity of Manganites: Crossover from Jahn-Teller Small Polaron to Coherent Transport in the Ferromagnetic State

We report on the optical properties of the hole-doped manganites Nd_{0.7}Sr _{0.3}MnO_{3}, La_{0.7}Ca_{0.3}MnO_{3}, and La_{0.7}Sr_{0.3}MnO_{3}. The low-energy optical conductivity in the paramagnetic-insulating state of these materials is characterized by a broad maximum near 1 eV. This feature shifts to lower energy and grows in optical oscillator strength as the temperature is lowered into the ferromagnetic state. It remains identifiable well below Tc and transforms eventually into a Drude-like response. This optical behavior and the activated transport in the paramagnetic state of these materials are consistent with a Jahn-Teller small polaron. The optical spectra and oscillator strength changes compare well with models that include both double exchange and the dynamic Jahn-Teller effect in the description of the electronic structure.Comment: 27 pages (Latex), 6 figures (PostScript