Two-phase coexistence is tunable and is not the equilibrium state in half-doped manganites

Abstract

We discuss our very interesting experimental observation that the low-temperature two-phase coexistence in half-doped manganites is multi-valued (at any field) in that we can tune the coexisting antiferromagnetic-insulating(AF-I) and the ferromagnetic-metallic(FM-M) phase-fractions by following different paths in (H,T) space. We have shown experimentally that the phase-fraction, in this two-phase coexistence, can take continuous infinity of values. All but one of these are metastable, and two-phase coexistence is not an equilibrium state.