Effects of oxygen-reducing atmosphere annealing on LaMnO3 epitaxial thin films
Abstract
We investigated the effects of annealing on LaMnO3 epitaxial thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition and propose an efficient method of characterizing their stoichiometry. Structural, magnetic, and optical properties coherently indicate non-stoichiometric ferromagnetic and semiconducting phases for as-grown LaMnO3 films. By annealing in an oxygen-reducing atmosphere, we recovered the antiferromagnetic and insulating phases of bulk-like stoichiometric LaMnO3. We show that non-destructive optical spectroscopy at room temperature is one of the most convenient tools for identifying the phases of LaMnO3 films. Our results serve as a prerequisite in studying LaMnO3 based heterostructures grown by pulsed laser deposition.
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