  Resistive, magnetoresistive and magnetic properties of four kinds of pressed
CrO2 powders, synthesized by hydrothermal method of chromic anhydride have been
investigated. The particles in powders constituted of rounded particles
(diameter 120 nm) or needle-shaped crystals with an average diameter of 22.9 nm
and average length of 302 nm. All of the particles had a surface dielectric
shell of varying thickness and different types (such as oxyhydroxide -CrOOH or
chromium oxide Cr2O3). For all the samples at low temperatures we found
non-metallic temperature dependence of resistivity and giant negative
magnetoresistance (MR). The maximum value of MR at low temperatures (T \approx
5 K) is \approx 37% in relatively small fields (0.5 T). At higher temperatures
there was a rapid decrease of MR (up to \approx 1% / T at T \approx 200 K). The
main objective of this work was studying the influence of properties and
thickness of the intergranular dielectric layers, as well as CrO2 particle
shape, on the magnitude of the tunneling resistance and MR of the pressed
powder. The new results obtained in this study include: (1) detection at low
temperatures in powders with needle-like particles a new type of MR hysteresis,
and nonmonotonic MR behaviour with increasing magnetic field (absolute value of
the MR at first grows rather rapidly with the field, and then begins
diminishing markedly, forming a maximum), and (2) detection of non-monotonic
temperature dependence, where - a field in which the resistance in a magnetic
field has a maximum, as well as finding discrepancies in values of and
coercivity fields, (3) detection of the anisotropy of MR, depending on the
relative orientation of the transport current and the magnetic field, (4) a new
method of synthesis, to regulate the thickness of dielectric coating.
