67 research outputs found
Elastic properties of FeSi
Measurements of the sound velocities in a single crystal of FeSi were
performed in the temperature range 4-300 K. Elastic constants and
deviate from a quasiharmonic behavior at high temperature; whereas,
increases anomalously in the entire range of temperature, indicating a
change in the electron structure of this materia
Surface Magnetic Phase Diagram of Tetragonal Manganites
To gain insights into the fundamental and characteristic features of the
surface of doped manganites, we constructed a general magnetic phase diagram of
LaSrMnO (001) surfaces in the plane spanned by and the
bulk tetragonal distortion , from the first-principles calculations. We
found that the surfaces are quite different from the bulk in the sense that
both the (La, Sr)O and MnO terminated surfaces show strong tendency toward
antiferromagnetism (A-type and C-type respectively). The basic physics
governing the phase diagram can be understood in terms of the surface orbital
polarizations. It is also found that the strong surface segregation of Sr atoms
is mostly caused by the electrostatic interaction and will further enhance the
tendency to surface antiferromagnetism.Comment: 3 figure
Two-phase behavior in strained thin films of hole-doped manganites
We present a study of the effect of biaxial strain on the electrical and
magnetic properties of thin films of manganites. We observe that manganite
films grown under biaxial compressive strain exhibit island growth morphology
which leads to a non-uniform distribution of the strain. Transport and magnetic
properties of these films suggest the coexistence of two different phases, a
metallic ferromagnet and an insulating antiferromagnet. We suggest that the
high strain regions are insulating while the low strain regions are metallic.
In such non-uniformly strained samples, we observe a large magnetoresistance
and a field-induced insulator to metal transition.Comment: 5 pages ReVTeX, 5 figures included, Figures 3, 4 and 5 low
resolution, high resolution figures available on request from authors,
submitted to Phys. Rev.
Study of Percolative Transitions with First-Order Characteristics in the Context of CMR Manganites
The unusual magneto-transport properties of manganites are widely believed to
be caused by mixed-phase tendencies and concomitant percolative processes.
However, dramatic deviations from "standard" percolation have been unveiled
experimentally. Here, a semi-phenomenological description of Mn oxides is
proposed based on coexisting clusters with smooth surfaces, as suggested by
Monte Carlo simulations of realistic models for manganites, also briefly
discussed here. The present approach produces fairly abrupt percolative
transitions and even first-order discontinuities, in agreement with
experiments. These transitions may describe the percolation that occurs after
magnetic fields align the randomly oriented ferromagnetic clusters believed to
exist above the Curie temperature in Mn oxides. In this respect, part of the
manganite phenomenology could belong to a new class of percolative processes
triggered by phase competition and correlations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 eps figure
Correlation Effects on Optical Conductivity of FeSi
Effects of electron correlation in FeSi are studied in terms of the two-band
Hubbard model with the density of states obtained from the band calculation.
Using the self-consistent second-order perturbation theory combined with the
local approximation, the correlation effects are investigated on the density of
states and the optical conductivity spectrum, which are found to reproduce the
experiments done by Damascelli et al. semiquantitatively. It is also found that
the peak at the gap edge shifts to lower energy region by correlation effects,
as is seen in the experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Atomic-scale images of charge ordering in a mixed-valence manganite
Transition-metal perovskite oxides exhibit a wide range of extraordinary but
imperfectly understood phenomena. Charge, spin, orbital, and lattice degrees of
freedom all undergo order-disorder transitions in regimes not far from where
the best-known of these phenomena, namely high-temperature superconductivity of
the copper oxides, and the 'colossal' magnetoresistance of the manganese
oxides, occur. Mostly diffraction techniques, sensitive either to the spin or
the ionic core, have been used to measure the order. Unfortunately, because
they are only weakly sensitive to valence electrons and yield superposition of
signals from distinct mesoscopic phases, they cannot directly image mesoscopic
phase coexistence and charge ordering, two key features of the manganites. Here
we describe the first experiment to image charge ordering and phase separation
in real space with atomic-scale resolution in a transition metal oxide. Our
scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) data show that charge order is correlated
with structural order, as well as with whether the material is locally metallic
or insulating, thus giving an atomic-scale basis for descriptions of the
manganites as mixtures of electronically and structurally distinct phases.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 19 reference
Heavy Carriers and Non-Drude Optical Conductivity in MnSi
Optical properties of the weakly helimagnetic metal MnSi have been determined
in the photon energy range from 2 meV to 4.5 eV using the combination of
grazing incidence reflectance at 80 degrees (2 meV to 0.8 eV) and ellipsometry
(0.8 to 4.5 eV). As the sample is cooled below 100 K the effective mass becomes
strongly frequency dependent at low frequencies, while the scattering rate
developes a linear frequency dependence. The complex optical conductivity can
be described by the phenomenological relation \sigma(\omega,T) \propto
(\Gamma(T)+i\omega)^{-1/2} used for cuprates and ruthenates.Comment: 5 pages, ReVTeX 4, 5 figures in eps forma
Orbital polarons and ferromagnetic insulators in manganites
We argue that in lightly hole doped perovskite-type Mn oxides the holes
(Mn sites) are surrounded by nearest neighbor Mn sites in which
the occupied orbitals have their lobes directed towards the central hole
(Mn) site and with spins coupled ferromagnetically to the central spin.
This composite object, which can be viewed as a combined orbital-spin-lattice
polaron, is accompanied by the breathing type (Mn) and Jahn-Teller type
(Mn) local lattice distortions. We present calculations which indicate
that for certain doping levels these orbital polarons may crystallize into a
charge and orbitally ordered ferromagnetic insulating state.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to be published in PR
Ultrasonic evidence of an uncorrelated cluster formation temperature in manganites with first-order magnetic transition at T_C
Ultrasonic attenuation and phase velocity measurements have been carried out
in the ferromagnetic perovskites La_{2/3}Ca_{1/3}MnO_3 and
La_{2/3}Sr_{1/3}MnO_3. Data show that the transition at the Curie temperature,
T_C, changes from first- to second-order as Sr replaces Ca in the perovskite.
The compound with first-order transition shows also another transition at a
temperature T* > T_C. We interpret the temperature window T_C < T < T* as a
region of coexistence of a phase separated regime of metallic and insulating
regions, in the line of recent theoretical proposals.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
The role of dynamical polarization of the ligand to metal charge transfer excitations in {\em ab initio} determination of effective exchange parameters
The role of the bridging ligand on the effective Heisenberg coupling
parameters is analyzed in detail. This analysis strongly suggests that the
ligand-to-metal charge transfer excitations are responsible for a large part of
the final value of the magnetic coupling constant. This permits to suggest a
new variant of the Difference Dedicated Configuration Interaction (DDCI)
method, presently one of the most accurate and reliable for the evaluation of
magnetic effective interactions. This new method treats the bridging ligand
orbitals mediating the interaction at the same level than the magnetic orbitals
and preserves the high quality of the DDCI results while being much less
computationally demanding. The numerical accuracy of the new approach is
illustrated on various systems with one or two magnetic electrons per magnetic
center. The fact that accurate results can be obtained using a rather reduced
configuration interaction space opens the possibility to study more complex
systems with many magnetic centers and/or many electrons per center.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
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