The effect of calcium and praseodymium deficiencies on the physical properties of Pr0.5Ca0.5MnO3

Structural and magnetic properties of small amount 5% of praseodymium and calcium deficiency of polycrystalline Pr0.5Ca0.5MnO3 manganite have been investigated. Our synthesized samples have been elaborated using the conventional solid state reaction at high temperature. Rietveld refinements of the X-ray diffraction patterns show that all our samples are single phase and crystallize in the orthorhombic structure with Pnma space group. Praseodymium deficiency leads to a decrease of the unit cell volume while calcium deficiency leads to an increase of the unit cell volume. Magnetization measurements show that the magnetic properties depend strongly on the nature of the deficiency.