Engineering the magnetocaloric properties of PrVO 3 epitaxial oxide thin films by strain effects

H. Bouhani (1, 2) , A. Endichi (1, 2) , D. Kumar (3) , O. Copie (1) , H. Zaari (2) , A. David (3) , A. Fouchet (3) , Wilfrid Prellier (3) , O. Mounkachi (2) , M. Balli (4) , A. Benyoussef (2) , A. El Kenz (2) , S. Mangin (1)

1 IJL - Institut Jean Lamour
2 UM5 - Université Mohammed V de Rabat [Agdal]
3 CRISMAT - Laboratoire de cristallographie et sciences des matériaux
4 UIR - Université Internationale de Rabat

Combining multiple degrees of freedom in strongly correlated materials such as transition-metal oxides would lead to fascinating magnetic and magnetocaloric features. Herein, the strain effects are used to markedly tailor the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of PrVO3 thin films. The selection of an appropriate thickness and substrate enables us to dramatically decrease the coercive magnetic field from 2.4 T previously observed in sintered PVO3 bulk to 0.05 T for compressive thin films making from the PrVO3 compound a nearly soft magnet. This is associated with a marked enhancement of the magnetic moment and the magnetocaloric effect that reaches unusual maximum values of roughly 4.86 μB and 56.8 J/kg K with the magnetic field change of 6 T applied in the sample plane in the cryogenic temperature range (3 K), respectively. This work strongly suggests that taking advantage of different degrees of freedom and the exploitation of multiple instabilities in a nanoscale regime is a promising strategy for unveiling unexpected phases accompanied by a large magnetocaloric effect in oxides.

Mots clés: Strongly correlated material; Strongly correlated material

Domaines: Matériaux; Chimie; Physique [physics]

H. Bouhani, A. Endichi, D. Kumar, O. Copie, H. Zaari, et al.. Engineering the magnetocaloric properties of PrVO 3 epitaxial oxide thin films by strain effects. Applied Physics Letters, 2020, 117 (7), pp.072402. ⟨10.1063/5.0021031⟩. ⟨hal-03014237v2⟩