Doping dependent electronic and magnetic ordering in mixed-valent La1−x Sr x MnO3 thin films

Abstract We have investigated the collective electronic and magnetic orderings of a series of La 1− x Sr x MnO 3 thin films grown epitaxially strained to (001) oriented strontium titanate substrates as a function of doping, x , for 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.4. We find that the ground states of these crystalline thin films are, in general, consistent with that observed in bulk crystals and thin film samples synthesized under a multitude of techniques. Our systematic study, however, reveal subtle features in the temperature dependent electronic transport and magnetization measurements, which presumably arise due to Jahn-Teller type distortions in the lattice for particular doping levels. For the parent compound LaMnO 3 ( x = 0), we report evidence of a strain-induced ferromagnetic ordering in contrast to the antiferromagnetic ground state found in bulk crystals.