Chemical ordering suppresses large-scale electronic phase separation in doped manganites

Authors

• Yinyan Zhu, Fudan University, Shanghai
• Kai Du, Fudan University, Shanghai
• Jiebin Niu, Fudan University, Shanghai
• Lingfang Lin, Southeast University, Nanjing
• Wengang Wei, Fudan University, Shanghai
• Hao Liu, Fudan University, Shanghai
• Hanxuan Lin, Fudan University, Shanghai
• Kai Zhang, Fudan University, Shanghai
• Tieying Yang, Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF)
• Yunfang Kou, Fudan University, Shanghai
• Jian Shao, Fudan University, Shanghai
• Xingyu Gao, Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF)
• Xiaoshan Xu, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
• Xiaoshan Wu, Nanjing University, Nanjing
• Shuai Dong, Southeast University, NanjingFollow
• Lifeng Yin, Fudan University, ShanghaiFollow
• Jian Shen, Fudan University, ShanghaiFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2016

Citation

NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | 7:11260

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11260 |www.nature.com/naturecommunications

Comments

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Abstract

For strongly correlated oxides, it has been a long-standing issue regarding the role of the chemical ordering of the dopants on the physical properties. Here, using unit cell by unit cell superlattice growth technique, we determine the role of chemical ordering of the Pr dopant in a colossal magnetoresistant (La_1-yPry)_1-xCa_xMnO₃ (LPCMO) system, which has been well known for its large length-scale electronic phase separation phenomena. Our experimental results show that the chemical ordering of Pr leads to marked reduction of the length scale of electronic phase separations. Moreover, compared with the conventional Pr-disordered LPCMO system, the Pr-ordered LPCMO system has a metal–insulator transition that is ~100 K higher because the ferromagnetic metallic phase is more dominant at all temperatures below the Curie temperature.