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Current switching of resistive states in magnetoresistive manganites

Nature volume 388, pages 50–52 (1997)Cite this article

Abstract

Magnetoresistive devices (based on, for example, magnetic multilayers1) exhibit large changes in electrical resistance in response to a magnetic field, which has led to dramatic improvements in the data density and reading speed of magnetic recording systems. Manganese oxides having a perovskite structure (the so-called manganites) can exhibit a magnetoresistive response that is many orders of magnitude larger than that found for other materials, and there is therefore hope that these compounds might similarly be exploited for recording applications2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11. Here we show that the switching of resistive states in the manganites can be achieved not only by a magnetic field, but also by an electric field. For manganites of the form Pr1−xCaxMnO3, we find that an electrical current (and by implication a static electric field) triggers the collapse of the low-temperature, electrically insulating charge-ordered state to a metallic ferromagnetic state. We suggest that such a phenomenon could be exploited to pattern conducting ferromagnetic domains within an insulating antiferromagnetic matrix, and so provide a route for fabricating micrometre- or nanometre-scale electromagnets.

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Figure 1: Temperature dependence of resistance of a Pr1−xCaxMnO3 (x = 0.3) crystal measured at various applied voltages.
Figure 2: Change of resistance of Pr1−xCaxMnO3 (x = 0.3) at 20 K as a function of applied voltage, measured using the circuit shown in Fig. 1 inset.
Figure 3: Current–voltage (I–V) characteristics at 20 K in magnetic fields of 0 T (a), 2 T (b) and 3 T (c).
Figure 4: Top panel, threshold voltage at 20 K, Vthreshold, from a high-resistivity (HR) to a low-resistivity (L.R) state, plotted as a function of magnetic field (see Fig. 3).

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Acknowledgements

This work was performed at JRCAT under the joint research agreement between the NAIR and the ATP, and was supported by NEDO and by a Grant-In-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture, Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. *Joint Research Center for Atom Technology (JRCAT), Tsukuba, 305, Japan

    A. Asamitsu, Y. Tomioka, H. Kuwahara & Y. Tokura

  2. †Department of Applied Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113, Japan

    Y. Tokura

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  1. A. Asamitsu
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  2. Y. Tomioka
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  4. Y. Tokura
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Correspondence to A. Asamitsu.

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Asamitsu, A., Tomioka, Y., Kuwahara, H. et al. Current switching of resistive states in magnetoresistive manganites. Nature 388, 50–52 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/40363

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