Journal of the American Chemical Society, 134 (2012) 7700–7714
Pulsed laser deposition has been used to artificially construct the n = 3 Ruddlesden Popper structure La2Sr2Mn3O10 in epitaxial thin film form by sequentially layering La1-xSrxMnO3 and SrO unit cells aided by in-situ Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction monitoring. The interval deposition technique was used to promote two dimensional SrO growth. X-ray diffraction and cross sectional Transmission Electron Microscopy indicated that the trilayer structure had been formed. A site ordering was found to differ from that expected thermodynamically, with the smaller Sr2+ predominantly on the R site due to kinetic trapping of the deposited cation sequence. A dependence of the out of plane lattice parameter on growth pressure was interpreted as changing the oxygen content of the films. Magnetic and transport measurements on fully oxygenated films indicated a frustrated magnetic ground state characterised as a spin glass-like magnetic phase with the glass temperature Tg = 34K. The magnetic frustration has a clear in-plane (ab) magnetic anisotropy, which is maintained up to temperatures of 150K. Density Functional Theory calculations suggest competing antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic long-range orders, which are proposed as the origin of the low temperature glassy state.
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a Department of Chemistry, University of Liverpool, Crown Street, Liverpool, L69 7ZD, United Kingdom
b EMAT, University of Antwerp, Groenenborgerlaan 171, B-2020, Antwerp, Belgium
