Effect of low level substitution of Sr-Ba on transport and magnetic behaviour of La0.67Ca0.33MnO3

In this paper we report the investigation of transition metal oxide compound, La0.67Ca0.25Sr0.04Ba0.04MnO3 (LCSBMO), along with La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 (LCMO), synthesized by sol-gel route under identical conditions. The effect of simultaneous low level substitution of large size ions such as Sr2+ and Ba2+ for Ca2+ ions on the electronic transport and magnetic susceptibility properties are analysed and compared apart from microstructure and lattice parameters. The temperature dependent electrical transport of the polycrystalline pellets of LCSBMO and LCMO when obeying the well studied law, rho = rho(0) + rho(2) T-2 for T < T-MI, is observed to differ by more than 50% from the values of rho(0) and rho(2), with the former compound showing enhanced electrical conductivity than the latter. Similarly in fitting the adiabatic small polaron model for resistivity data of both the samples for T > T-MI, the polaron activation energy is found to differ by about 11%. In addition, the temperature dependent a. c. magnetic susceptibility study of the compounds shows a shift of about 6% in the paramagnetic to ferromagnetic transition temperature (285 K for LCSBMO and 270 K for LCMO).