Impact of the Fe Doping on Magnetism in Perovskite Cobaltites

Abstract

We systematically studied the magnetic and transport properties for the polycrystalline samples of Fe-doped perovskite cobaltites: Pr$_{1-y}$Ca$_{y}$Co$_{1-x}$Fe$_x$O$_3$ ($y$=0.3, $x$=0-0.15; $y$=0.45, $x$=0-0.3) and Gd$_{0.55}$Sr$_{0.45}$Co$_{1-x}$Fe$_x$O$_{3}$ ($x$=0-0.3). Fe doping leads to an enhancement of the ferromagnetism in the systems of Pr$_{1-y}$Ca$_{y}$Co$_{1-x}$Fe$_x$O$_3$, while the ferromagnetism is suppressed with further increasing Fe content and spin-glass behavior is observed at high doping level of Fe. In contrast, the ferromagnetism is suppressed in the system Gd$_{0.55}$Sr$_{0.45}$Co$_{1-x}$Fe$_x$O$_{3}$ as long as Fe is doped, and no spin-glass behavior is observed in the sample with Fe doping up to 0.3. The competition between ferromagnetic interactions through Fe$^{3+}$-O-(LS)Co$^{4+}$ and antiferromagnetic interactions through Fe$^{3+}$-O-Fe$^{3+}$ and Fe$^{3+}$-O-(IS)Co$^{3+}$ is considered to be responsible for the behavior observed above. The average radius of the ions on A sites plays the key role in determining what type of interactions Fe doping mainly introduces.