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The effect of 200MeV Ag ion irradiation on structural, electrical transport, magnetization, and low-frequency conduction noise properties of electron-doped La0.7Ce0.3MnO3 thin films have been investigated. The as-grown thin films show c-axis epitaxial structure along with a small amount of unreacted CeO2 phase. After the irradiation, at the lowest fluence both the magnetization and metal-insulator transition temperature increase. Further increase in fluence reduces the metal-insulator transition temperature and leads to larger resistivity; however, the unreacted phase of CeO2 disappears in the x-ray diffraction pattern. On the other hand, the normalized electrical noise is greatly enhanced even at the lowest nonzero fluence. Surprisingly the conducting noise in the irradiated samples is much higher in the metallic state than in the semiconducting one. The observed modifications in structural, electrical, magnetic, and noise properties of 200MeV Ag ion irradiated La0.7Ce0.3MnO3 thin films have been explain...

We have explored the possibility of ferromagnetic semiconducting property in the epitaxial thin films of LaFe1−xNixO3 (x=0.3, 0.4, and 0.5) grown on (001) oriented LaAlO3 substrate. We observe that substitution of Ni in the series leads to the increase in conductivity of the samples with conduction being controlled by the disorder-induced localization of charge carriers. All these samples show ferromagnetic behavior at room temperature while their magnetization decreases with increase in Ni concentration in the composition. The results have been explained on the basis of the close interplay between the electrical and magnetic properties.

The parameters for bolometric performance [temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) and noise value] and magnetic sensitivity of pulsed-laser-deposited thin films of La0.7Ce0.3MnO3 and their dependence on the 200 MeV Ag ions irradiation are studied. It is observed that the TCR value and magnetic sensitivity can be tuned in different temperature regime by controlling the irradiation fluence value. It turns out that irradiation with a fluence value of 5×1010ions∕cm2 changes the TCR value in a positive direction and enhances magnetic sensitivity at room temperature, while irradiation with a fluence value of 1×1012ions∕cm2 enhances these parameters at 200 K. The observations are explained on the basis of structural and electrical transport modifications induced by the 200 MeV Ag ion irradiation.

Electronic structures of LaFe1−xNixO3 (x⩽0.6) have been studied by x-ray absorption near edge structure spectra of OK, FeL2,3 and LaM4,5 edges. Upon substitution of Ni at Fe site in LaFeO3, the OK-edge spectra show a feature about 2.0eV lower than that of LaFeO3. This feature is growing as the concentration of Ni is increasing. This is consistent with our resistivity data which show that the resistivity decreases very fast with Ni substitution from GΩcm for LaFeO3 to a few mΩcm for the sample with 60% Ni substitution. The resistivity data have been fitted with a variable-range hopping model and it is found that the gap parameter reduces from 2eV to 2.1meV with the Ni substitution. This gap parameter decreases very systematically with the increase in Ni concentration. The structural analysis of these samples shows that they have single-phase orthorhombic structure with space-group Pnma in the studied range (0⩽x⩽0.6). The study of FeL2,3-edge structures confirm the trivalent state of Fe. The observed featur...