Magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of polycrystalline La0.48Ca0.52MnO3 compound at low temperature: Influence of glassy magnetic state

We report the magnetic, magnetocaloric and electrical transport properties of polycrystalline bulk La0.48Ca0.52MnO3 compound. In addition to earlier reported properties viz. charge ordering and antiferromagnetic ordering, we address the presence of glassy magnetic phase at low temperature (T<40K) in this compound. Studies on magnetic and magnetocaloric properties reveal that, pronounced glassy behavior in this compound is due to presence of ferromagnetic clusters in the low-temperature region. In addition to that, analysis of low-temperature x-ray diffraction measurements indicate increasing crystallographic unit cell volume which is attributed to the enhancement of eg-electron bandwidth at low temperature.