Magnetotransport Properties of Ferromagnetic/Antiferromagnetic Superlattices: Probing the role of induced magnetization in antiferromagnetic layer

TL;DR

This study uses a double exchange model to explore how induced ferromagnetism in antiferromagnetic layers affects the magnetotransport properties of LSMO/PCMO superlattices, revealing layer-width-dependent magnetic and electronic behaviors.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed simulation of ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic superlattices considering Jahn-Teller distortions and Coulomb interactions, highlighting the role of induced magnetization in transport properties.

Findings

Induced ferromagnetic correlations decrease with increasing PCMO layer width at high temperatures.

Charge ordering reduces induced ferromagnetism at half-doping at low temperatures.

Conductivity correlates with the magnitude of induced ferromagnetic moments in PCMO.

Abstract

We investigate the magnetic and transport properties of the $La_{1-x}Sr_{x}MnO_{3}$ (LSMO)/$Pr_{1-x}Ca_{x}MnO_{3}$ (PCMO) like ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic superlattices in three dimensions using a two orbitals double exchange model incorporating the Jahn-Teller lattice distortions, superexchange interactions and long-range Coulomb interactions. In our simulations we primarily focus on periodic arrangement of $w_L$ planes of ferromagnetic LSMO and $w_P$ planes of antiferromagnetic PCMO manganites, and set $w_L$+$w_P$ = 10. The induced ferromagnetic correlations in the parent PCMO layer decreases monotonically with increasing the PCMO layer width $w_P$ at high temperatures for both half-doping ($n =0.5$) and off-half-doping ($n = 0.55$) scenarios. As we decrease the temperature further the induced ferromagnetic moments in PCMO layer disappears or decreases considerably at half-doping due to the onset of charge ordering in antiferromagnetic PCMO layers. Overall, the magnetization in PCMO layer decreases at low temperatures and the metal-insulator transition temperature of the LSMO/PCMO superlattices increases with increase of the PCMO layer width $w_P$, similar to the experiments. On the other hand, at off-half-doping, the induced ferromagnetic moment survives even at low temperatures due to weakened charge ordering in PCMO layer and interestingly, varies nonmonotonically with PCMO layer width, in agreement with experiments. The nonmonotonic trend of the conductivity of the superlattice with increase of the PCMO layer width $w_P$ shows an one-to-one correspondence between conductivity of the superlattice and the induced ferromagnetic moments in the PCMO layer. We highlight the key role of induced ferromagnetic moment in PCMO layer in analyzing the magnetotransport properties of the LSMO/PCMO superlattices.