Conductivity noise study of the insulator-metal transition and phase coexistence in epitaxial samarium nickelate thin films

Sahoo, Anindita and Ha, Sieu D and Ramanathan, Shriram and Ghosh, Arindam (2014) Conductivity noise study of the insulator-metal transition and phase coexistence in epitaxial samarium nickelate thin films. In: PHYSICAL REVIEW B, 90 (8).

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Abstract

Interaction between the lattice and the orbital degrees of freedom not only makes rare-earth nickelates unusually ``bad metal,'' but also introduces a temperature-driven insulator-metal phase transition. Here we investigate this insulator-metal phase transition in thin films of SmNiO3 using the slow time-dependent fluctuations (noise) in resistivity. The normalized magnitude of noise is found to be extremely large, being nearly eight orders of magnitude higher than thin films of common disordered metallic systems, and indicates electrical conduction via classical percolation in a spatially inhomogeneous medium. The higher-order statistics of the fluctuations indicate a strong non-Gaussian component of noise close to the transition, attributing the inhomogeneity to the coexistence of the metallic and insulating phases. Our experiment offers insight into the impact of lattice-orbital coupling on the microscopic mechanism of electron transport in the rare-earth nickelates.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	PHYSICAL REVIEW B
Additional Information:	Copy right for this article belongs to the AMER PHYSICAL SOC, ONE PHYSICS ELLIPSE, COLLEGE PK, MD 20740-3844 USA
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited:	10 Oct 2014 09:12
Last Modified:	10 Oct 2014 09:12
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/49979

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