Effect of CDW and magnetic interactions on the electrons of the manganite systems

We address a model study which includes the co-existence of the charge density wave (CDW) and ferromagnetic interactions in order to explain the colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) in manganites. The Hamiltonian consists of the ferromagnetic Hund's rule exchange interaction between e_g and t_2g spins, Heisenberg core spin interactions and the CDW interaction present in the e_g band electrons. The core electron magnetization, induced e_g electron magnetization and the CDW gap are calculated using Zubarev's Green's function technique and determined self-consistently. The effect of core electron magnetization and the CDW interaction on the induced magnetization as well as on the occupation number in the different spin states of the e_g band electrons are investigated by varying the model parameters of the system like the CDW coupling, the exchange coupling, the Heisenberg coupling and the external field. It is observed that the induced magnetization exhibits re-entrant behaviour and exists within a narrow temperature range just below the Curie temperature. This unusual behaviour of the e_g band electrons will throw some new insights on the physical properties of the manganite systems.     

Correlation of electrical, magnetic, and thermal properties of the La0.85Ag0.15MnO3 manganite near the phase transition temperature

The correlation between electrical, magnetic, and lattice properties of manganites has been studied by analyzing the temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity of the La_0.85Ag_0.15MnO₃ manganite. The results have been discussed within the model of a phase-separated manganite in terms of the percolation theory. It has been shown that, from analyzing the temperature and magnetic field dependences of the electrical resistivity, it is possible to predict the behavior of the magnetization and specific heat, as well as the change of magnetic entropy near the phase transition temperature, and that the obtained agreement with experimental data for this analysis is quite reasonable.     

An analytic study of the E ⊗ e Jahn-Teller polaron

An analytic study is presented of the E⊗e Jahn-Teller (JT) polaron, consisting of a mobile e_g electron linearly coupled to the local e_g normal vibrations of a periodic array of octahedral complexes. Due to the linear coupling, the parity operator and the angular momentum operator commute with the JT part and cause a twofold degeneracy of each JT eigenvalue. This degeneracy is lifted by the anisotropic hopping term. The Hamiltonian is then mapped onto a new Hilbert space, which is isomorphic to an eigenspace of belonging to a fixed angular momentum eigenvalue j > 0. In this representation, the Hamiltonian depends explicitly on j and decomposes into a Holstein term and a residual JT interaction. While the ground state of the JT polaron is shown to belong to the sector j = 1/2, the Holstein polaron is obtained for the “unphysical” value j = 0. The new Hamiltonian is then subjected to a variational treatment, yielding the dispersion relations and effective masses for both kinds of polarons. The calculated polaron masses are in remarkably good agreement with recent quantum Monte Carlo data. The possible relevance of our results to the magnetoresistive manganite perovskites is briefly discussed. Received 6 July 2001     

Internal friction evidence of uncorrelated magnetic clusters in electron-doped manganite Sr0.8Ce0.2MnO3

Electron-doped manganite Sr_0.8Ce_0.2MnO₃ has been systematically investigated by X-ray diffraction, electronic transport, magnetic, internal friction, and Young's modulus experiments. The X-ray diffraction result indicates that the compound remains tetragonal (I4/mcm) structure at room temperature. Due to the strong Jahn–Teller (JT) distortion, the ground state is antiferromagnetic (AFM) insulator. Below 20 K, a spin-glass (SG) state dominates at low temperatures. In the paramagnetic (PM) region, an internal friction peak at around 250 K, which is characteristic of relaxation, has been observed. Under applied magnetic field, the internal friction peak moves to higher temperature, which is suggested to originate from the formation of ferromagnetic (FM) clusters in PM region. In addition, the softening of Young's modulus in the vicinity of AFM transition temperature is interpreted in terms of the strong electron–phonon interaction.     

The influence of band Jahn-Teller effect and magnetic order on the magneto-resistance in manganite systems

A model calculation is presented in order to study the magneto-resistivity through the interplay between magnetic and structural transitions for the manganite systems. The model consists of an orbitally doubly degenerate conduction band and a periodic array of local moments of the t_2g electrons. The band electrons interact with the local t_2g electrons via the s-f hybridization. The phonons interact with the band electrons through static and dynamic band Jahn-Teller (J-T) interaction. The model Hamiltonian including the above terms is solved for the single particle Green's functions and the imaginary part of the self-energy gives the electron relaxation time. Thus the magneto-resistivity (MR) is calculated from the Drude formula. The MR effect is explained near the magnetic and structural transition temperatures.     

Ultra-sharp metamagnetic transition in manganite Pr0.6Na0.4MnO3

We report the magnetic and electrical transport properties of manganite Pr_0.6Na_0.4MnO₃. At the temperature of 2 K, a field-induced steplike magnetization and resistivity transition are observed. The step transitions of magnetization and resistivity are shifted to higher fields as a result of field cooling, and transformed to a smooth broad one when the cooling field is higher than 20 kOe. Moreover, in a magnetic field slightly below the critical field, the magnetic and resistive relaxation exhibits a spontaneous step after a long incubation time when both the temperature and magnetic field are constant. Such steplike transitions are discussed in terms of a martensiticlike transformation associated with phase separation.     

Interrelation between magnetic and structural phases in La<Subscript>1−<Emphasis Type="Italic">x</Emphasis></Subscript>Sr<Subscript>x</Subscript>MnO<Subscript>3</Subscript> (<Emphasis Type="Italic">x</Emphasis>=0.175) manganite single crystal

Investigation of the temperature and magnetic-field dependences of the electrical conductivity and the velocity and damping of the transverse ultrasonic waves at a frequency of 770 MHz revealed the temperature and magnetic hysteresises of the elastic parameters and the electrical resistivity. This is explained by the influence of magnetization on the structural phase transition in a manganite sample. The two-phase crystal structure influences the magnetization process and the behavior of resistivity in the vicinity of the concentrational intersection of the magnetic and structural phase transitions.     

Effect of temperature and magnetic field on disorder in semiconductor structures

We present the results of consistent theoretical analysis of various factors that may lead to influence of temperature and external magnetic field on disorder in semiconductor structures. Main attention is paid to quantum well (QW) structures in which only QWs or both QW and barriers are doped (the doping level is assumed to be close to the value corresponding to the metal–insulator transition). The above factors include (i) ionization of localized states to the region of delocalized states above the mobility edge, which is presumed to exist in the impurity band; (ii) the coexistence in the upper and lower Hubbard bands (upon doping of QWs as well as barriers); in this case, in particular, the external magnetic field determines the relative contribution of the upper Hubbard band due to spin correlations at doubly filled sites; and (iii) the contribution of the exchange interaction at pairs of sites, in which the external magnetic field can affect the relation between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic configurations. All these factors, which affect the structure and degree of disorder, lead to specific features in the temperature dependence of resistivity and determine specific features of the magnetoresistance. Our conclusions are compared with available experimental data.     

Effect of phase stratification into electro- and magnetotransport in heteroepitaxial La2/3Ca1/3MnO3 films

The La_2/3Ca_1/3MnO₃ films 25-nm thick biaxially compressed in the substrate plane, grown quasi-coherently on the (001) surface of the LaAlO₃ single crystal, were studied using laser vaporization. It was found that mechanical stresses acting during nucleation and growth promoted calcium enrichment of the cation sublattice of the manganite layer, which caused a decrease in its unit cell volume. Crystalline grains in manganite films were distinctly oriented along the normal to the substrate plane; the grain size in the substrate plane was within 20–40 nm, and the relative grain misorientation in the substrate plane did not exceed 0.2°. In zero magnetic field, the maximum in the temperature dependence of the resistivity ρ of La_2/3Ca_1/3MnO₃ films was observed at temperatures close to 210 K. At T < 100 K and μ₀ H = 2 T, the magnetoresistance of manganite films was negative, weakly depended on temperature, its value was about–0.45. The magnetic field caused transformation of nonferromagnetic phase inclusions to ferromagnetic ones, which resulted in a decrease in the La_2/3Ca_1/3MnO₃ film resistivity with increasing magnetic field. At low temperatures (T < 100 K), a hysteresis was observed in the dependences of the film resistivity on the magnetic field.     

Interfacial phase competition induced Kondo-like effect in manganite-insulator composites

A Kondo-like effect, namely, the upturn of resistivity at low temperatures, is observed in perovskite manganite when nonmagnetic insulators are doped as secondary phase. In this paper, the low-temperature resistivity upturn effect has been argued to originate from interfacial magnetic phase reconstruction. Heisenberg spin lattices have been simulated using the Monte Carlo method to reveal phase competition around secondary phase boundary, namely, manganite-insulator boundary that behaves with a weak antiferromagnetic tendency. Moreover, the resistor network model based on double-exchange conductive mechanism reproduces the low-temperature resistivity upturn effect. Our work provides a reasonable physical mechanism to understand the novel transport behaviors in microstructures of correlated electron systems.     

Crystal orientation in Bi-based superconducting glass-ceramics prepared in high magnetic field

A high magnetic field of 10 T was applied to the crystallization process of Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O_x superconducting precursor glasses, and the effect of high magnetic field on crystal grain orientations and superconducting properties were examined from electrical resistivity measurements, X-ray diffraction analyses and scanning electron microscope observations. The glass-ceramics prepared in a high magnetic field show better superconducting properties (higher critical temperature, larger critical current density, and smaller normal-state resistivity) compared with the samples crystallized in a normal heat-treatment with no magnetic field. It was found that Bi2212 crystal grains with a plate-like shape tend to stack to the direction of the magnetic field, i.e., the orientation of the c-axis of the Bi2212 phase to the direction of the magnetic field.     

Collective spin excitations in 2D paramagnet with dipole interaction

The collective spin excitations in the unbounded 2D paramagnetic system with dipole interactions are studied. The model Hamiltonian includes Zeeman energy and dipole interaction energy, while the exchange vanishes. The system is placed into a constant uniform magnetic field which is orthogonal to the lattice plane. It provides the equilibrium state with spin ordering along the field direction, and the saturation is reached at zero temperature. We consider the deviations of spin magnetic moments from its equilibrium position along the external field. The Holstein-Primakoff representation is applied to spin operators in low-temperature approximation. When the interaction between the spin waves is negligible and only two-magnon terms are taken into account, the Hamiltonian diagonalisation is possible. We obtain the dispersion relation for spin waves in the square and hexagonal honeycomb lattice. Bose-Einstein statistics determine the average number of spin deviations, and total system magnetization. The lattice structure does not influence on magnetization at the long-wavelength limit. The dependencies of the relative magnetization and longitudinal susceptibility on temperature and external field intensity are found. The internal energy and specific heat of the Bose gas of spin waves are calculated. The collective spin excitations play a significant role in the properties of the paramagnetic system at low temperature and strong external magnetic field.     

Theory of the one-dimensional Peierls-Hubbard-model

We consider the properties of a one-dimensional Hamiltonian for electrons and phonons including the Fröhlich electron-phonon interaction as well as the Hubbard term for electron-electron interaction. The unperturbed band structure is of tight-binding form and half-filled.We derive the gap equation and the ground-state energy of the system in mean field approximation.We find antiferromagnetic ordering and lattice distortion and calculate the displacive and magnetic phase limits.D82 (Diss. TH Aachen)     

Spectrum of an electron spin coupled to an unpolarized bath of nuclear spins

The main source of decoherence for an electron spin confined to a quantum dot is the hyperfine interaction with nuclear spins. To analyze this process theoretically we diagonalize the central spin Hamiltonian in the high magnetic B-field limit. Then we project the eigenstates onto an unpolarized state of the nuclear bath and find that the resulting density of states has Gaussian tails. The level spacing of the nuclear sublevels is exponentially small in the middle of each of the two electron Zeeman levels but increases superexponentially away from the center. This suggests to select states from the wings of the distribution when the system is projected on a single eigenstate by a measurement to reduce the noise of the nuclear spin bath. This theory is valid when the external magnetic field is larger than a typical Overhauser field at high nuclear spin temperature.     

Magnetocaloric effect in phase separated manganite probed by differential thermal analysis

Differential thermal analysis is used to measure the temperature change (ΔT) due to the application of an external magnetic field in a manganite with phase separation. The temperature dependence of ΔT is compared with the expected from magnetization measurements. A phenomenological model for the enthalpy change is used to obtain ΔT during the metamagnetic transition.     

Optical polarization of nuclei and ODNMR in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells

Optical orientation of electrons was used to polarize the crystal lattice nuclei in quantum-size heterostructures and to study the effect of the conduction band spin splitting on the spin states of quasi-two-dimensional (2D) electrons drifting in an external electric field. High (～1%) nuclear polarization was registered using polarized luminescence and ODNMR in single GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells. Measurement was made of the hyperfine interaction fields created by polarized nuclei on electrons and by electrons on nuclei. The spin-lattice relaxation of nuclei on the non-degenerate 2D electron gas was calculated. A comparison of the theoretical and experimental longitudinal relaxation times permitted the conclusion that the localized charge carriers are responsible for nuclear polarization in quantum wells in the temperature range of 2–77 K. A new effect has been studied, i.e. induction of an effective magnetic field acting on 2D electron spins when electrons drift in an external electric field in the quantum well plane. This effective field B_eff is due to the spin splitting of the conduction band of 2D electrons. The paper discusses possible registration of an ODNMR signal when the field B_eff is modulated by an electric current during optical orientation.     

Electron properties anomalies on the stage preceding rhombohedral phase in TiNi

The qualitative change of temperature dependence of resistivity, magnetic susceptibility and peak counting rate of annihilation photons at a stage preceding rhombohedral phase in TiNi has been observed. The above anomalies of electron properties are connected with reconstruction of the electron band structure caused by charge-density-wave formation.     

Magnetic properties of Ni/Au core/shell studied by Monte Carlo simulations

The magnetic properties of ferromagnetic Ni/Au core/shell have been studied using Monte Carlo simulations within the Ising model framework. The considered Hamiltonian includes the exchange interactions between Ni–Ni, Au–Au and Ni–Au and the external magnetic field. The thermal total magnetizations and total magnetic susceptibilities of core/shell Ni/Au are computed. The critical temperature is deduced. The exchange interaction between Ni and Au atoms is obtained. In addition, the total magnetizations versus the external magnetic field and crystal filed for different temperature are also established.     

Quantum Phase Transition and Thermal Entanglement in the Isotropic XXX Model

We investigate the quantum phase transition (QPT) and the pairwise thermal entanglement in the three-qubit Heisenberg XXX chain with Dzyaloshinskii--Moriya (DM) interaction under a magnetic field. The ground states of the system exist crossing points, which shows that the system exhibits a QPT. At a given temperature, the entanglement undergoes two sudden changes (platform-like behavior) as the DM interaction or external magnetic field increases. This special property can be used as the entanglement switch, which is also influenced by the temperature. We can modulate the DM interaction or external magnetic field to control the entanglement switch.     

Metal-insulator transition in a radiation-disordered La<Subscript>0.85</Subscript>Sr<Subscript>0.15</Subscript>MnO<Subscript>3</Subscript> manganite

The temperature dependences of the electrical resistivity ρ(T) and the ac magnetic susceptibility χ(T, H = 0) are thoroughly investigated for a perovskite-like lanthanum manganite, namely, La_0.85Sr_0.15MnO₃, which is preliminarily exposed to neutron irradiation with a fluence _F = 2 × 10¹⁹ cm^?2 and then annealed at different temperatures ranging from 200 to 1000°C. The results of the electrical resistance measurements demonstrate that neutron irradiation of the samples leads to the disappearance of the low-temperature insulating phase. As the annealing temperature increases, the insulating phase is not restored and the manganite undergoes a transformation into a metallic phase. Analysis of the magnetic properties shows that, under irradiation, the ferromagnet-paramagnet phase transition temperature T_C decreases and the magnetic susceptibility is reduced significantly. With an increase in the annealing temperature, the phase transition temperature T_C and magnetic susceptibility χ(_{T, H} = 0) increase and gradually approach values close to those for an unirradiated sample. This striking difference in the behavior of the electrical and magnetic properties of the radiation-disordered La_0.85Sr_0.15MnO₃ manganite is explained qualitatively.