Distinct effects of homogeneous weak disorder and dilute strong scatterers on phase competition in manganites

We study the two orbital double-exchange model in two dimensions including antiferromagnetic (AFM) superexchange, Jahn-Teller coupling, and substitutional disorder. At hole doping x = 0.5 we focus on phase competition between the ferromagnetic metal (FMM) and the charge-ordered (CO) and orbital-ordered (OO) CE state and compare the impact of weak homogeneous disorder to that of a low density of strong scatterers. Even moderate homogeneous disorder suppresses the CE-CO-OO phase and leads to a glass with nanoscale correlations, while dilute strong scatterers of comparable strength convert the CE-CO-OO phase to a phase separated state with ferromagnetic metal and AFM-CO-OO clusters.