Thermal cycling memory in phase separated manganites

TL;DR

This study investigates how thermal cycling affects magnetization in phase-separated manganites, revealing irreversibility linked to phase coexistence and strain, with potential for thermal monitoring devices.

Contribution

A phenomenological model correlating magnetization changes with thermal cycles in manganites, supported by experimental validation.

Findings

Magnetization decreases after thermal cycling between 300 and 50 K.

Model accurately predicts magnetization behavior with cycle number.

Thermal cycling increases non-ferromagnetic phase, possibly due to interfacial strain.

Abstract

We have studied the irreversibility of the magnetization induced by thermal cycles in La0.5Ca0.5MnO3 manganites, which present a low temperature state characterized by the coexistence of phases. The effect is evidenced by a decrease of the magnetization after cycling the sample between 300 and 50 K. We developed a phenomenological model that allows us to correlate the value of the magnetization with the number of cycles performed. The experimental results show excellent agreement with our model, suggesting that this material could be used for the development of a device to monitor thermal changes. The effect of thermal cycling is towards an increase of the amount of the non ferromagnetic phase in the compounds and it might be directly related with the strain at the contact surface among the coexisting phases.