Effect of strain and electric field on the electronic soft matter in manganite thin films

Abstract

We have studied the effect of substrate-induced strain on the properties of the hole-doped manganite (La$_{1-y}$Pr$_{y}$)$_{0.67}$Ca$_{0.33}$MnO$_{3}$ ($y$ = 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6) in order to distinguish between the roles played by long-range strain interactions and quenched atomic disorder in forming the micrometer-scale phase separated state. We show that a fluid phase separated (FPS) state is formed at intermediate temperatures similar to the strain-liquid state in bulk compounds, which can be converted to a metallic state by applying an external electric field. In contrast to bulk compounds, at low temperatures a strain stabilized ferromagnetic metallic (FMM) state is formed in the $y$ = 0.4 and 0.5 samples. However, in the $y$ = 0.6 sample a static phase separated (SPS) state is formed similar to the strain-glass phase in bulk compounds. Hence, we show that long-range strain interaction plays a dominant role in forming the micrometer-scale phase separated state in manganite thin films.