Chemical ordering suppresses large-scale electronic phase separation in doped manganites

Abstract

For strongly correlated oxides, it has been a long-standing issue regarding the role of the chemical ordering of the dopants on the physical properties. Here, using unit cell by unit cell superlattice growth technique, we determine the role of chemical ordering of the Pr dopant in a colossal magnetoresistant (La1-yPry)1-xCaxMnO3 (LPCMO) system, which has been well known for its large length-scale electronic phase separation phenomena. Our experimental results show that the chemical ordering of Pr leads to marked reduction of the length scale of electronic phase separations. Moreover, compared with the conventional Pr-disordered LPCMO system, the Pr-ordered LPCMO system has a metal-insulator transition that is B100 K higher because the ferromagnetic metallic phase is more dominant at all temperatures below the Curie temperature.