  Lanthanum manganite, LaMnO (LMO) is the parent compound for a class of hole
doped(e.g. La1-xCaxMnO3, La1-xSrxMnO3) and electron doped (e.g. . La1-xCexMnO3,
La1-xSnxMnO3) perovskite complex oxide materials. Strong correlation between
the spin,lattice, charge and orbital degrees of freedom is a hallmark of these
class of materials (popularly known as manganites). Competition and interplay
of these degrees of freedom lead to a wide range of interesting electronic
behavior including half-metallicity, colossal magneto-resistivity, etc.
Although a lot of experimental research has been carried out on the hole doped
and the electron doped counterparts, the parent system LMO remains less
investigated. This could be attributed to the difficulty in making
stoichiometric LMO (whether in bulk polycrystalline, single crystals or thin
films). There exists phenomenon like double-exchange (DE) and
anti-ferromagnetic super-exchange (SE) interactions which leads to
ferromagnetism in LMO thin films. This project work is aimed at the fabrication
and characterization of thin films of stoichiometric LMO and their structural,
magnetic and electrical studies.
