Schottky-like anomaly in the heat capacity and magnetocaloric effect of charge-ordered single-crystalline (Sm, Ca, Sr)MnO[formula omitted] compound

Abstract

We present a comprehensive experimental study on the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of a charge-ordered single-crystalline Sm0.5Ca0.25Sr0.25MnO3 compound. The studies on x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) reveals the presence of an equal distribution of Mn3+ and Mn4+ ions in the studied system. The Oxygen, O1s-core level spectra have been simulated with three binding energies curves, which correspond to the O2− ions, O1− ions, and chemically adsorbed oxygens, Ochem. The XPS analysis of the O1s-core-level spectra and magnetic characterizations indicate the proper stoichiometry of the present sample. Considering the change of volume phase fraction in the isofield magnetization measurements during the first-order magnetic phase transition from paramagnetic state to ferromagnetic state, the isothermal magnetic entropy change (ΔS) has been estimated based on the modified Clausius–Clapeyron equation. An inverse magnetocaloric effect has also been noticed in the -ΔS vs. T plot calculated by Maxwell’s thermodynamic relation, suggesting the dominant antiferromagnetic ground state supported by a charge-ordered phase of the studied system. The high-temperature zero-field heat capacity (CP) data can be well-interpreted quantitatively using the Debye model of heat capacity. With the extracted magnetic heat capacity (Cmag) data, the temperature variation of the magnetic entropy (S(0)), as well as the adiabatic temperature change (ΔTad), have been estimated. In addition to that, the low-temperature CP data displays a Schottky-like anomaly in the temperature region between 2 K and 20 K. The experimental data points are successfully fitted by considering the various contributing factors of the low-temperature heat capacity such as the lattice-phonon vibration (Clat), antiferromagnetic spin-wave (Cmag), and the two-level Schottky function (Csch) due to the energy splitting of the Sm3+ cations.