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Giant magnetoresistivity in single crystals of rare earth layered cobaltites

Sergei N. Barilo 2Sergei V. Shiryaev 2Georgii L. Bychkov 2Denis V. Sheptyakov 3Zhixian Zhou 4Scott Alexander 4Jack E. Crow 4Andrew Podlesnyak 3Peter Allenspach 3Albert Furrer 3

1. Laboratory for Neutron Scattering, ETHZ & PSI Villigen (LNS), Villigen, Switzerland
2. The Institute of Solid State & Semiconductor Physics, Belarus NAS (ISSSP), P. Brovka, Minsk 220072, Belarus
3. Laboratory for Neutron Scattering, ETHZ & PSI Villigen (LNS), Villigen, Switzerland
4. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL), Tallahassee, FL 32310-3706, United States

Abstract

It was shown recently LnBaCo2O5+delta (Ln-112, Ln being rare earth ion, 0 < = delta < = 1) layered cobaltites present giant magnetoresistivity (GMR) phenomena accompanied by fascinated features with structural, metal-insulator, and magnetic field induced transitions, as well as charge and orbital ordering phenomena on the verge of Co3) spin-state transitions. Early work focused on studies sintered polycrystalline and powder samples. High quality single crystals are essential to understand nature of GMR phenomena in the layered cobaltites, which is differing cardinal from the nature of colossal magnetoresistance in the wellknown rare earth manganites. The original approach to flux growth was developed to provide large and high quality single crystals of the oxygen deficient layered cobaltates. Fortunately, we found co-crystallization of the Ln-112 phase and new cobaltite phases in wide ranges of flux melt composition and temperature for the most of Ln2O3 - BaO - CoO systems. The data on primary crystallization fields of the phases, which appear in parts of corresponding Gibbs triangles at temperature in the range 1373 - 1523K allow us to presume a tentative (T-x) quasi binary cut of the system phase diagram. Here we also report on first growth of the Ln-112 (Ln = Pr, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy) single crystals as large as 6 x 6 x 1.5 mm3 and confirm GMR property of the compounds by meausurements of the crystals in external fields up to 30T. Highly anisotropic negative GMR effect (up to 80% at 4T, 40K) was registered in Gd-112 single crystal. Data of neutron powder diffraction of Tb-112 and magnetic susceptibility of weekly twinned Gd-112 single crystal unambiguosly shown the layered cobaltites are easy axis magnets with spontaneous magnetization alignment along a or b-axis of the structure. Metamagnetic behavior of cobalt sublattice in the basal plane of Eu-112 single crystal was observed to serve as a base for constructing of generic H-T magnetic phase diagram.

 

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Presentation: invited oral at E-MRS Fall Meeting 2003, Symposium D, by Sergei N. Barilo
See On-line Journal of E-MRS Fall Meeting 2003

Submitted: 2003-05-03 09:52
Revised:   2009-06-08 12:55