Abstract
Abstract There is an increasing experimental evidence that phase separation between insulating and metallic phase plays an important role in the physics of manganites. On general grounds one can argue that the electronic density in the metallic and insulating region will be generally different. This implies that phase separation of the ordinary “Maxwell construction” type is frustrated by the long-range Coulomb interaction. We present a generalization of Maxwell construction to this situation. The system is assumed to separate in islands of one phases hosted by the other. The size of the islands is determined minimizing a free energy that takes into account both surface energy and Coulomb effects. We discuss the peculiarities of this kind of phase separation and the consequences for the manganites. In particular, we present an explanation for the non-monotonous behavior of the Curie temperature as a function of doping.
Published Version
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