Nonequilibrium 1/f noise in low-doped manganite single crystals

1/f noise in current biased La0.82Ca0.18MnO3 crystals has been investigated. The temperature dependence of the noise follows the resistivity changes with temperature, suggesting that resistivity fluctuations constitute a fixed fraction of the total resistivity, independently of the dissipation mechanism and magnetic state of the system. The noise scales as a square of the current as expected for equilibrium resistivity fluctuations. However, at 77 K at bias exceeding some threshold, the noise intensity starts to decrease with increasing bias. The appearance of nonequilibrium noise is interpreted in terms of bias dependent multistep indirect tunneling. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.