Abstract
Perovskite manganite compounds such as Pr1-x(Ca 1-ySry)xMnO3 can be tuned to exhibit a metastable ground state where two magnetic/crystallographic phases coexist in zero magnetic field. Field-dependent neutron diffraction measurements on both poly- and single-crystal samples with a range of Pr, Ca, and Sr dopings (0.3 ≤ x ≤ 0.35 and γ ≤ 0.30) reveal that the charge ordered, antiferromagnetic phase of the ground state suddenly and irreversibly jumps to the ferromagnetic state. The transition occurs spontaneously at some time after the field is set above a threshold field, indicating that once the transition is initiated an avalanche occurs that drives it to completion.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 174433 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-6 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue number | 17 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2004 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This research was performed while F. M. Woodward held a National Research Council Research Associateship Award at the NIST Center for Neutron Research. This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, under Contract No. W-31-109-ENG-38. Work at Penn State was funded by NSF Grant No. DMR-01-01318.