  The effects of tetragonal strain on electronic and magnetic properties of
strontium-doped lanthanum manganite, La_{2/3}Sr_{1/3}MnO_3 (LSMO), are
investigated by means of density-functional methods. As far as the structural
properties are concerned, the comparison between theory and experiments for
LSMO strained on the most commonly used substrates, shows an overall good
agreement: the slight overestimate (at most of 1-1.5 %) for the equilibrium
out-of-plane lattice constants points to possible defects in real samples. The
inclusion of a Hubbard-like contribution on the Mn d states, according to the
so-called "LSDA+U" approach, is rather ineffective from the structural point of
view, but much more important from the electronic and magnetic point of view.
In particular, full half-metallicity, which is missed within a bare
density-functional approach, is recovered within LSDA+U, in agreement with
experiments. Moreover, the half-metallic behavior, particularly relevant for
spin-injection purposes, is independent on the chosen substrate and is achieved
for all the considered in-plane lattice constants. More generally, strain
effects are not seen to crucially affect the electronic structure: within the
considered tetragonalization range, the minority gap is only slightly (i.e. by
about 0.1-0.2 eV) affected by a tensile or compressive strain. Nevertheless, we
show that the growth on a smaller in-plane lattice constant can stabilize the
out-of-plane vs in-plane e_g orbital and significatively change their relative
occupancy. Since e_g orbitals are key quantities for the double-exchange
mechanism, strain effects are confirmed to be crucial for the resulting
magnetic coupling.
