Observation of magnetically hard grain boundaries in double-perovskite Sr2FeMoO6

Takahashi, Y and Verma, VK and Shibata, G and Harano, T and Ishigami, K and Yoshimatsu, K and Kadono, T and Fujimori, A and Tanaka, A and Chang, FH and Lin, HJ and Huang, DJ and Chen, CT and Pal, B and Sarma, DD (2014) Observation of magnetically hard grain boundaries in double-perovskite Sr2FeMoO6. In: EPL, 108 (2).

PDF epl_108-2_2014.pdf - Published Version Restricted to Registered users only Download (679kB) | Request a copy

Abstract

Unusual low-temperature magneto-resistance (MR) of ferromagnetic Sr2FeMoO6 polycrystals has been attributed to magnetically hard grain boundaries which act as spin valves. We detected the different magnetic hysteresis curves for the grains and the grain boundaries of polycrystalline Sr2FeMoO6 by utilizing the different probing depths of the different detection modes of x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD), namely, the total electron yield (TEY) mode (probing depth similar to 5 nm) and the total fluorescence yield (TFY) mode (probing depth similar to 100 nm). At 20 K, the magnetic coercivity detected in the TEY mode (H-c,H- TEY) was several times larger than that in the TFY mode (H-c,H- TFY), indicating harder ferromagnetism of the grain boundaries than that of the grains. At room temperature, the grain boundary magnetism became soft and H-c,H- TEY and H-c,H- TFY were nearly the same. From the line-shape analysis of the XAS and XMCD spectra, we found that in the grain boundary region the ferromagnetic component is dominated by Fe2+ or well-screened signals, while the non-magnetic component is dominated by Fe3+ or poorly screened signals. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2014

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	EPL
Publisher:	EPL ASSOCIATION, EUROPEAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY
Additional Information:	Copyright for this article belongs to the EPL ASSOCIATION, EUROPEAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY, 6 RUE DES FRERES LUMIERE, MULHOUSE, 68200, FRANCE
Department/Centre:	Division of Chemical Sciences > Solid State & Structural Chemistry Unit
Date Deposited:	29 Dec 2014 05:11
Last Modified:	29 Dec 2014 05:11
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/50537

Actions (login required)

View Item