Surface spin glass and exchange bias effect in Sm0.5Ca0.5MnO3 manganites nano particles

Abstract

In this letter, we report that the charge/orbital order state of bulk antiferromagnetic Sm0.5Ca0.5MnO3 is suppressed and confirms the appearance of weak ferromagnetism below 65 K followed by a low temperature spin glass like transition at 41 K in its nano metric counterpart. Exchange anisotropy effect has been observed in the nano manganites and can be tuned by the strength of the cooling magnetic field (Hcool). The values of exchange fields (HE), coercivity (HC), remanence asymmetry (ME) and magnetic coercivity (MC) are found to strongly depend on cooling magnetic field and temperature. HE increases with increasing Hcool but for larger Hcool, HE tends to decrease due to the growth of ferromagnetic cluster size. Magnetic training effect has also been observed and it has been analyzed thoroughly using spin relaxation model. A proposed phenomenological core-shell type model is attributed to an exchange coupling between the spin-glass like shell (surrounding) and antiferromagnetic core of Sm0.5Ca0.5MnO3 nano manganites mainly on the basis of uncompensated surface spins. Results suggest that the intrinsic phase inhomogeneity due to the surface effects of the nanostructured manganites may cause exchange anisotropy, which is of special interests for potential application in multifunctional spintronic devices.