Magnetoresistance Effects for the Inhomogeneous Perovskite System of Ag Doped La<sub>0.833</sub>Na<sub>0.167</sub>MnO<sub>3</sub>

Abstract

The transport properties of the inhomogeneous system (1/4) Ag2O-La0.833Na0.167MnO3 (LNMO/Ag) have been systematically studied. X-ray diffraction patterns show that the LNMO/Ag sample is the two-phase composite and consists of a magnetic La0.833Na0.167MnO3 (LNMO) perovskite phase and a nonmagnetic Ag metal phase. The resistivity of the sample decreases dramatically with Ag added into the pure perovskite LNMO manganites. For the LNMO/Ag sample, the Curie temperature TC is 331 ± 2 K and slightly higher than that of the LNMO sample (323 ± 2 K). Due to the dope of Ag metal, the room temperature magnetoresistance effect is enhanced significantly (from 7% for the pure LNMO manganites to 23% for the LNMO/Ag sample under a relative lower field of 0.5 T and from 37.5% for the LNMO sample to 41 % for the LNMO/Ag sample under a high field of 6 T at the temperature of 330 K. In the low temperature regime, the magnetoresistance ratio of the LNMO/Ag sample is smaller than that of the LNMO sample, which is contrary to the magnetoresistance effect in high temperature. The effects are discussed qualitatively by use of a model which is based on the relative change among the intrinsic magnetoresistance effect and the extrinsic magnetoresistance effect.