Kinetic pathway facilitated by a phase competition to achieve a metastable electronic phase

Letter

Kinetic pathway facilitated by a phase competition to achieve a metastable electronic phase

Keisuke Matsuura, Hiroshi Oike, Vilmos Kocsis, Takuro Sato, Yasuhide Tomioka, Yoshio Kaneko, Masao Nakamura, Yasujiro Taguchi, Masashi Kawasaki, Yoshinori Tokura, and Fumitaka Kagawa

Phys. Rev. B 103, L041106 – Published 14 January 2021

Abstract

We show that ground state phase competition significantly decreases the critical cooling rate required for the kinetic avoidance of a first-order phase transition and thus facilitates the creation of metastable electronic states. This principle is revealed for the phase transition between antiferromagnetic charge-orbital-ordered insulating and ferromagnetic metallic states in the so-called colossal magnetoresistive manganite ${Nd}_{0.5} {Sr}_{0.5} {MnO}_{3}$ . In a phase competition situation, we achieve reversible and nonvolatile control of bulk magnetization by $1 μ_{B} / f . u .$ and resistivity by $\sim 1000 %$ by applying electric pulses to exploit electric heating and subsequent rapid cooling.

Received 7 October 2020
Accepted 5 January 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.103.L041106

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

First order phase transitions Phase transitions

Ferromagnets Manganites

Magnetization measurements Resistivity measurements

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Keisuke Matsuura^1,*, Hiroshi Oike ^1,2, Vilmos Kocsis¹, Takuro Sato¹, Yasuhide Tomioka³, Yoshio Kaneko¹, Masao Nakamura ¹, Yasujiro Taguchi ¹, Masashi Kawasaki^1,2, Yoshinori Tokura ^1,2,4, and Fumitaka Kagawa ^1,2,†

¹RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science, Wako 351-0198, Japan
²Department of Applied Physics and Quantum-Phase Electronics Center (QPEC), University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
³National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba 305-8560, Japan
⁴Tokyo College, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan

^*keisuke.matsuura@riken.jp
^†kagawa@ap.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

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Issue

Vol. 103, Iss. 4 — 15 January 2021

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Images

Figure 1
(a) The electronic phase diagram of ${Nd}_{1 - x} {Sr}_{x} {MnO}_{3}$ near $x$ = 0.5, reproduced from Refs. [17, 22]. “ $PM$ -M,” “ $FM$ -M,” and “ $AFM$ -COI” represent paramagnetic metallic, ferromagnetic metallic, and antiferromagnetic charge-orbital-ordered insulating phases, respectively. (b) The electronic phase diagram of ${Nd}_{0.5} {Sr}_{0.5} {MnO}_{3}$ . $H_{high}$ (red filled circles) and $H_{low}$ (blue filled circles) represent a transition onset in increasing and decreasing magnetic field processes, respectively, and they are determined from the isothermal magnetization-curve measurements (see Fig. S1 in Ref. [25]). The gray-hatched region represents the transition hysteresis. (c) and (d) The temperature dependence of the resistance (c) and magnetization (d) under a magnetic field of 5.5 T. The broken lines are the results measured at a temperature sweep rate of $\sim 0.08$ K $s^{- 1}$ . The solid lines are the results measured in the warming process after the electric pulse application at the lowest temperature, 5 K, with a duration of 1 s. During the pulse application, the sample was heated from 5 to $\sim 170$ K (see Fig. S2 in Ref. [25]), and after the pulse ended, rapid cooling to 5 K followed at a rate of $\sim 300$ K $s^{- 1}$ .
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Figure 2
(a) The postpulse magnetization at 5 K and 5.5 T as a function of cooling rate. Inset: The time evolution of the postpulse magnetization at 50 K. (b) and (c) The MFM images of the AFM-COI (b) and metastable FM-M phases (c).
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Figure 3
(a) The postpulse magnetization at 5 K as a function of cooling rate with various magnetic fields. The error bar is the standard deviation in pulse measurements repeated four times. The standard cooling rate, $10^{- 2}$ – $10^{- 1}$ K $s^{- 1}$ , is highlighted by the gray-hatched area. (b) The magnetic field dependence of the critical cooling rate. For the definition of the critical cooling rate, see the main text. The critical cooling rate at 5.3 T exceeds the highest cooling rate accessible in the present experiment ( $\sim 300$ K $s^{- 1}$ ), and this situation is indicated by plotting the open diamond at 300 K $s^{- 1}$ .
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Figure 4
(a) and (b) The time profiles of the resistance (a) and the magnetization (b). The initial state before the pulse application is prepared by field cooling under 5.5 T at a rate of 0.08 K $s^{- 1}$ . In the “set” (the blue-hatched) and “reset” (the red-hatched) processes, the “set” current pulse ( $7.0 \times 10^{5}$ A $m^{- 2}$ and 1 s) and the “reset” current pulse ( $2.5 \times 10^{5}$ A $m^{- 2}$ and 30 s) were applied, respectively.
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