Coupled structural/magnetocrystalline anisotropy transitions in the doped perovskite cobaltite ${\text{Pr}}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}{\text{Sr}}_{x}{\text{CoO}}_{3}$

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Coupled structural/magnetocrystalline anisotropy transitions in the doped perovskite cobaltite ${Pr}_{1 - x} {Sr}_{x} {CoO}_{3}$

C. Leighton, D. D. Stauffer, Q. Huang, Y. Ren, S. El-Khatib, M. A. Torija, J. Wu, J. W. Lynn, L. Wang, N. A. Frey, H. Srikanth, J. E. Davies, Kai Liu, and J. F. Mitchell

Phys. Rev. B 79, 214420 – Published 15 June 2009

Abstract

Years of intensive work on perovskite manganites has led to a detailed understanding of the phenomena that emerge from competition between the electronic and lattice degrees of freedom in these correlated electron systems. It is well understood that the related cobaltites provide an additional spin-state degree of freedom. Here, we use the magnetic properties of a particular cobaltite, ${Pr}_{1 - x} {Sr}_{x} {CoO}_{3}$ , to demonstrate the vital role played by a further ingredient often negligible in manganites; magnetocrystalline anisotropy. ${Pr}_{1 - x} {Sr}_{x} {CoO}_{3}$ exhibits an anomalous “double magnetic transition” that cannot be ascribed to a spin-state transition or the usual charge/orbital/antiferromagnetic ordering and has thus far evaded explanation. We show that this is actually due to a coupled structural/magnetocrystalline anisotropy transition driven, in this case, by Pr-O hybridization. The results point to the existence of a distinct class of phenomena in the cobaltites due to the unique interplay between structure and magnetic anisotropy.

Received 24 March 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.79.214420

Authors & Affiliations

C. Leighton^1,*, D. D. Stauffer¹, Q. Huang², Y. Ren³, S. El-Khatib^1,2, M. A. Torija¹, J. Wu¹, J. W. Lynn², L. Wang¹, N. A. Frey⁴, H. Srikanth⁴, J. E. Davies⁵, Kai Liu⁵, and J. F. Mitchell⁶

¹Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
²NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA
³Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA
⁴Department of Physics, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, USA
⁵Department of Physics, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA
⁶Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA

^*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; leighton@umn.edu

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Vol. 79, Iss. 21 — 1 June 2009

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Figure 1
(Color online) Temperature dependence of the magnetization of ${Pr}_{1 - x} {Sr}_{x} {CoO}_{3}$ . (a)–(f) show 1 mT field cooled (both warming and cooling) and zero-field-cooled data at $x = 0.35$ , 0.40, 0.50, 0.55, 0.60, and 0.65 in a measuring field of 1 mT. (g)–(i) show the $x = 0.5$ field-cooled data at measuring fields of 1 mT, 0.1 T, and 5 T.Reuse & Permissions
Figure 2
(Color online) Temperature dependence of the electronic transport and thermodynamic properties. (a) shows the resistivity at $x = 0.10$ , 0.15, 0.18, 0.20, 0.25, 0.35, 0.40, 0.45, 0.50, 0.55, and 0.60. The resistivity for $x = 50$ is shown more clearly in (b) along with the corresponding 9 T magnetoresistance in (c). Specific heat is displayed in (d) both in zero field and 9 T. The vertical dotted lines denote $T_{C}$ and $T_{A}$ .Reuse & Permissions
Figure 3
(Color online) Crystal structure and phase diagram. (a) Crystal structure of ${Pr}_{0.5} {Sr}_{0.5} {CoO}_{3}$ with monoclinic (solid lines) and pseudocubic (doted lines) unit cells highlighted. The arrow indicates the Pr-O plane discussed in the text. (b) Magnetic phase diagram showing $T_{C}$ , $T_{SG}$ , and $T_{A}$ . $PS = paramagnetic$ semiconductor, $SGS = spin$ /cluster-glass semiconductor, $PM = paramagnetic$ metal, $FMM = ferromagnetic$ metal, and $MIT = metal$ -insulator transition. The shaded fields indicate the regions in which the low $T$ crystal structure is orthorhombic, monoclinic, and simple cubic.Reuse & Permissions
Figure 4
(Color online) X-ray and neutron scattering results $(x = 0.5)$ . Panel (a) shows the temperature dependence of the x-ray diffraction patterns in the vicinity of the (400) and (022) peaks. The lattice parameters determined from the x-ray diffraction are shown in (b). Panel (c) is a (color) intensity plot showing the intensity of the neutron diffraction near the (011) and (200) peaks. The dotted lines depict the individual diffraction peaks as discussed in the text. The peak neutron intensity vs temperature is shown in the top panel of (d), along with the refined saturation moment (right axis), small-angle neutron-scattering intensity $(q = 0.0138 Å^{- 1})$ , and the “summed intensity” described in the text (left axis). The dotted lines denote $T_{C}$ and $T_{A}$ .Reuse & Permissions
Figure 5
(Color online) The magnetic anisotropy transition in ${Pr}_{0.5} {Sr}_{0.5} {CoO}_{3}$ . (a)–(d) show the temperature dependence of the coercivity $(H_{C})$ , fraction of irreversible magnetization $(M_{IRREV})$ , anisotropy field $(H_{K})$ , and Pr-O1 bond lengths [see structure in Fig. 3a]. The dotted line denotes $T_{A}$ . Panel (e) shows the field dependence of the magnetization at illustrative temperatures of 10 and 120 K. Panel (f) displays the $y$ dependence of $T_{A}$ in ${({La}_{1 - y} {Pr}_{y})}_{0.5} {Sr}_{0.5} {CoO}_{3}$ .Reuse & Permissions

Physical Review B

covering condensed matter and materials physics

Coupled structural/magnetocrystalline anisotropy transitions in the doped perovskite cobaltite ${Pr}_{1 - x} {Sr}_{x} {CoO}_{3}$

C. Leighton, D. D. Stauffer, Q. Huang, Y. Ren, S. El-Khatib, M. A. Torija, J. Wu, J. W. Lynn, L. Wang, N. A. Frey, H. Srikanth, J. E. Davies, Kai Liu, and J. F. Mitchell

Phys. Rev. B 79, 214420 – Published 15 June 2009

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Physical Review B

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Coupled structural/magnetocrystalline anisotropy transitions in the doped perovskite cobaltite Pr1−xSrxCoO3

C. Leighton, D. D. Stauffer, Q. Huang, Y. Ren, S. El-Khatib, M. A. Torija, J. Wu, J. W. Lynn, L. Wang, N. A. Frey, H. Srikanth, J. E. Davies, Kai Liu, and J. F. Mitchell

Phys. Rev. B 79, 214420 – Published 15 June 2009

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Coupled structural/magnetocrystalline anisotropy transitions in the doped perovskite cobaltite ${Pr}_{1 - x} {Sr}_{x} {CoO}_{3}$