Materials Research Bulletin, Vol.99, 73-78, 2018
Effect of sintering temperature on structural, magnetic and electrical transport properties of La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 ceramics prepared by Plasma Activated Sintering
La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 (LCMO) ceramics were prepared by Plasma Activated Sintering (PAS). The effect of sintering temperature on structural, magnetic and electrical transport properties of the LCMO ceramics were investigated. XRD and SEM characterizations of the LCMO ceramics indicated that all samples exhibited single orthorhombic phase. Also, through PAS dense LCMO ceramics were obtained. Certain interesting phenomena were observed from the PAS sintering temperature effect on the magnetic and transport behaviors of LCMO ceramics, which were significantly different from traditional sintering methods The magnetization decreased and the resistivity increased as the sintering temperature increased, whereas the T-C and T-IM shifted towards the lower temperature side. The conduction mechanism of all samples was electron-magnon scattering process in the ferromagnetic low-temperature region, while the paramagnetic high-temperature region mechanism was explained with the variable range hopping (VRH) model. All these behaviors were explained through the oxygen vacancy effect in combination with the grain size effect.
Keywords:Plasma Activated Sintering;LCMO ceramics;Sintering temperature;Magnetic properties;Electrical transport properties