Effects of film thickness and lattice mismatch on strain states and magnetic properties of La(sub 0.8)Ca(sub 0.2)MnO(sub 3) thin films

A study was conducted to analyze the influence of strain relaxation on the crystallographic domain structure, magnetic and transport characteristics of epitaxial colossal magnetoresistive La(sub 0.8)Ca(sub 0.2)MnO(sub 3) thin films. Experimental results indicated that increases in thickness correlate with the relaxation of the lattice strain. Both the peak resistivity and Curie temperatures increases with increasing film thickness.