Tuning of Magnetic and Electrical Properties in Complex oxide Thin Films Deposited By Pulsed Laser Deposition

Lanthanum manganite, LaMnO (LMO) is the parent compound for a class of hole doped(e.g. La1-xCaxMnO3, La1-xSrxMnO3) and electron doped (e.g. . La1-xCexMnO3, La1-xSnxMnO3) perovskite complex oxide materials. Strong correlation between the spin,lattice, charge and orbital degrees of freedom is a hallmark of these class of materials (popularly known as manganites). Competition and interplay of these degrees of freedom lead to a wide range of interesting electronic behavior including half-metallicity, colossal magneto-resistivity, etc. Although a lot of experimental research has been carried out on the hole doped and the electron doped counterparts, the parent system LMO remains less investigated. This could be attributed to the difficulty in making stoichiometric LMO (whether in bulk polycrystalline, single crystals or thin films). There exists phenomenon like double-exchange (DE) and anti-ferromagnetic super-exchange (SE) interactions which leads to ferromagnetism in LMO thin films. This project work is aimed at the fabrication and characterization of thin films of stoichiometric LMO and their structural, magnetic and electrical studies.