Substrate-related structural, electrical, magnetic and optical properties of La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 films

Abstract

La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO) film exhibits certain unique properties which make it an ideal material for heterostructure-based multifunctional devices. In this paper, La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 thin films were grown epitaxially on SrTiO3, LaAlO3(LAO) and (LaAlO3)0.3-(SrAl0.5Ta0.5O3)0.7(LSAT) substrates, and their structural, electrical, magnetic and optical properties were examined and compared, aiming at revealing and explaining the effects of substrate on fundamental physical properties of LSMO films. Results show that (i) the effects of substrate materials on the electrical conductivity and paramagnetic–ferromagnetic transition temperature of the LSMO films could be ignored, and (ii) the LSMO film on LAO substrate has much higher coercive field and slower photoinduced relaxation process than other samples. This unusual behavior observed in the LSMO film on the LAO substrate could be related to the nature of the LAO substrate itself, on which the LSMO film showed different easy magnetization direction, and the film also exhibited relatively poor crystalline quality due to the twin domain structure of LAO crystal. Our results may help to understand the substrate-related electrical, magnetic and optical properties for perovskite manganite films.