Temperature dependence of magnetoresistance and nonlinear conductance of the bicrystal grain boundary in epitaxial La0.67Ba0.33MnO3 thin films

Abstract

We investigated conduction through an artificial grain-boundary junction made in La0.67Ba0.33MnO3 thin films, deposited on a 36.7° SrTiO3 bicrystal substrate using a laser ablation technique. The grain boundary exhibits substantial magnetoresistance at low temperatures and also shows nonlinear I–V characteristics. Analysis of temperature dependence of the dynamic conductance allows us to identify three carrier transport mechanisms across the grain boundary. These mechanisms exist in parallel, and at a given temperature one mechanism may dominate. Particularly, at higher temperatures (T>175 K) the transport across the grain boundary involves spin–flip scattering, which we establish leads to decrease of the bicrystal grain-boundary contribution in magnetoresistance. At lower temperature (4.2–45 K), tunneling through a disordered oxide at the grain boundary dominates, whereas in the temperature range from 100 to 175 K, carrier transport is dominated by inelastic tunneling via pairs of manganese atoms.