Some Important Features of Manganites

Abstract

Manganites are very complex systems because of interplay among charge, spin, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom. To come closer to the understanding of its nature, we discuss its three important features : 1) correlation between magnetization and electrical resistivity in the same temperature range ; 2) detection of chemical constitution and the arrangement of Mn 3+ and Mn 4+ ions at different hole concentrations ; and 3) how electrical current flows through double exchange in manganites. The first feature will be discussed for three-dimensional manganies. The features 2 and 3 are inscrutable in three-dimensional manganites. So they will be discussed for one-dimensional manganites and then generalized. One-dimensional solid has been discussed because it may give a see-through picture of various aspects of manganites. All the discussions will be done through a representative example of La 1-x Ca x MnO 3 , because it is the intermediate bandwidth manganite; has been most widely investigated and has the highest magnetoresistance. If two things : 1) magnetization and resistivity as a function of temperature at various magnetic fields ; and 2) phase diagrams of other manganites are known, their properties can be understood by the discussion of the three features mentioned above .