Magnetic and electronic phase transitions and magnetoresistance effect in the Pr0.5−xLaxSr0.5MnO3 (x=0.10, 0.15) system

The electronic and magnetic phase transitions of Pr0.5−xLaxSr0.5MnO3 with x=0.10 and 0.15 were investigated. The M(T) and ρ(T) curves for these samples clearly show transitions from antiferromagnetic insulator to ferromagnetic semiconductor, ferromagnetic metal and finally to paramagnetic semiconductor as the temperature is increased from 5 to 300 K. Especially, two obvious protrudent peaks in the magnetoresistance curves MR(T) for these samples were clearly observed in the relative low magnetic field, 1 T. One peak appears at around the antiferromagnet-ferromagnet transition temperature TN (∼150 K) with MR≈−23%, another occurs at around the ferromagnet-paramagnet transition temperature TC(∼275 K ) with MR≈−8.2%. In addition, when the magnetic field was increased, the temperature corresponding to the MR peak at TN shifts to lower temperature while the temperature corresponding to the MR peak at TC is fixed.