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The mixed ferrite-cobaltites LnFe0.5Co0.5O3, with Ln = Eu & Dy have been prepared by a sol-gel method and the samples have been characterized using X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy. The magnetic investigations reveal that both samples ordered in canted antiferromagnetic structures near room temperature. The Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya or antisymmetric exchange interaction induces weak ferromagnetism due to canting of the antiferromagnetically ordered spins. In the case of Ln-Fe-Co orthoferrites, two magnetic sublattices (Ln3+-4f and Fe3+/Co3+-3d) generally align in opposite directions and interesting temperature dependent phenomena: e.g. uncompensated antiferromagnetic sublattices and spin-reorientations, are observed in the system. The existence of hysteresis at low temperature region has been explained in terms of the strength of magnetic interactions between Fe3+ and Co3+ ions with different A-site rare earth cations., Comment: 16 pages

In this study, we determined the different physical characteristics of nanoscale layered mixed Fe-Co layers of orthoferrite SmFe0.5Co0.5O3 based on magnetic and dielectric measurements.Magnetization analyzes showed that the system was antiferromagnetic with a magnetic transition around 310 K and two spin-reorientation transitions at around 192 K and 22 K.In this phase, the antisymmetric exchange interaction induced weak ferromagnetism due to canting of the magnetic spins in a similar manner to the Ln-Fe-Co system. Importantly, this nanoscale layered perovskite also exhibited a positive magneto-dielectric effect of around 2.5 % (100 K) and the value decreased on both sides of this temperature.We analyzed the conditions related to the existence of magnetic and dielectric coupling in terms of the magnetic interactions between the cations as well as the spin-lattice interactions in the low temperature range., Comment: 16 pages(Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids)

The possibility to segregate cobalt and iron in a single perovskite, at a nanoscale in the form of layers has been investigated, using sol gel technic synthesis. Quite remarkably, it is shown that such a nanoscale ordering, which can only be detected by a combined HAADF-STEM and EELS study, has a significant impact upon the magnetic properties of this SmFe0.5Co0.5O3 oxide. This suggests that careful nanoscale characterization of oxides will be necessary in the future before proceeding to a viable interpretation of their physical properties, at least in the field of magnetism.

A comparative study of the effect of Fe and Ni doping on the bismuth based perovskite La0.6Bi0.4MnO3.1, a projected spintronics magnetic semiconductor has been carried out. The doped systems show an expressive change in magnetic ordering temperature. However, the shifts in ferromagnetic transition (TC) of these doped phases are in opposite direction with respect to the parent phase TC of 115 K. The Ni-doped phase shows an increase in TC ~200 K, whereas the Fe-doped phase exhibits a downward shift to TC~95 K. Moreover, the Fe-doped is hard-type whereas the Ni-doped compound is soft-type ferromagnet. It is observed that the materials are semiconducting in the ferromagnetic phase with activation energies of 77 & 82 meV for Fe & Ni-doped phases respectively. In the presence of external magnetic field of 7 Tesla, they exhibit minor changes in the resistivity behaviours and the maximum isothermal magnetoresistance is around -20 % at 125 K for the Ni-phase. The results are explained on the basis of electronic phase separation and competing ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions between the various mixed valence cations., Comment: 18 pages including figures

The effect of oxygen content on the magnetic and transport properties of the ferromagnetic Eu0.9Ca0.1BaCo2O5.5+{\delta} has been carried out. Unlike the increase in TC with calcium content, paradoxally the TC value decreases with the increase in oxygen (Co4+) content as observed in the undoped phase. This result unveils the hidden generic magnetic feature of the LnBaCo2O5.5 system in the calcium doped phase. This behaviour supports strongly the appearance of Co3+ disproportion action into Co4+ and Co2+ and the magnetic phase separation scenario of ferromagnetic domains embedded in an antiferromagnetic matrix. All the samples covering a wide range of oxygen content, exhibit a p-type conductivity., Comment: 26 pages including figs

Raman scattering experiments have been carried out on single crystals of Nd$_{0.5}$Sr$_{0.5}$MnO$_3$ as a function of temperature in the range of 320-50 K, covering the paramagnetic insulator-ferromagnetc metal transition at 250 K and the charge-ordering antiferromagnetic transition at 150 K. The diffusive electronic Raman scattering response is seen in the paramagnetic phase which continue to exist even in the ferromagnetic phase, eventually disappearing below 150 K. We understand the existence of diffusive response in the ferromagnetic phase to the coexistence of the different electronic phases. The frequency and linewidth of the phonons across the transitions show significant changes, which cannot be accounted for only by anharmonic interactions., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures published in Pramana - Journal of Physics

Brillouin scattering studies have been carried out on high quality single crystals of Fe$_3$O$_4$ with [100] and [110] faces in the temperature range of 300 to 30 K. The room temperature spectrum shows a surface Rayleigh wave (SRW) mode at 8 GHz and a longitudinal acoustic (LA) mode at 60 GHz. The SRW mode frequency shows a minimum at the Verwey transition temperature $T_V$ of 123 K. The softening of the SRW mode frequency from about 250 K to $T_V$ can be quantitatively understood as a result of a decrease in the shear elastic constant C$_{44}$, arising from the coupling of shear strain to charge fluctuations. On the other hand, the LA mode frequency does not show any significant change around $T_V$, but shows a large change in its intensity. The latter shows a maximum at around 120 K in the cooling run and at 165 K in the heating run, exhibiting a large hysteresis of 45 K. This significant change in intensity may be related to the presence of stress-induced ordering of Fe$^{3+}$ and Fe$^{2+}$ at the octahedral sites, as well as to stress-induced domain wall motion., Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, accepted in Physical Review B 2005

Temperature-dependent Brillouin scattering studies have been carried out on La_{0.77}Ca_{0.23}MnO_3 across the paramagnetic insulator - ferromagnetic metal (I-M) transition. The spectra show a surface Rayleigh wave (SRW) and a high velocity pseudo surface acoustic wave (HVPSAW) besides bulk acoustic waves (BAW). The Brillouin shifts associated with SRW and HVPSAW show blue-shifts, where as the frequencies of the BAW decrease below the I-M transition temperature (T_C) of 230 K. These results can be understood based on the temperature dependence of the elastic constants. We also observe a central peak whose width is maximum at T_C., Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures