Magnetic field mediated low-temperature resistivity upturn in electron-doped La1−xHfxMnO3 manganite oxides

Abstract

The low-temperature transport properties were systematically studied on the electron-doped polycrystalline La1−xHfxMnO3 (x = 0.2 and 0.3) compounds at the presence of external magnetic fields. The resistivity of all samples exhibits a generally low-temperature resistance upturn behavior under zero magnetic field at the temperature of Tmin, which first shifts towards lower temperature at low magnetic field (H < 0.75 T) and then moves back to higher temperature as magnetic fields increase, which is greatly different with the previous results on the hole-doped manganites. The best fitting of low-temperature resistivity could be made by considering both electron-electron (e-e) interactions in terms of T1/2 dependence and Kondo-like spin dependent scattering in terms of lnT dependence at all magnetic fields. Our results will be meaningful to understand the underlying physical mechanism of low-temperature resistivity minimum behavior in the electron-doped manganites.