Positive magnetoresistance in Ca-doped cobaltites

Transport properties of polycrystalline La_1−xCa_xCoO₃ (0.10 ≤ x ≤ 0.25) are systemically studied in this work. Three types of magnetoresistance (MR) effects are found in the Ca-doped cobaltites. Two negative MRs appear around high-temperature ferromagnetic transition and at low temperatures, which correspond to the conventional MR due to the field-induced suppression of spin-disorder scattering and the intergranular giant-MR due to spin-dependent transport between the ferromagnetic clusters, respectively. More interestingly, another exotic positive MR emerges at intermediate temperature region, which had not been previously reported in Sr- and Ba-doped cobaltites. It is found that this positive MR is associated with an abnormally magnetic transition and increases with the increase of x. For x = 0.25, the MR at low temperatures is dominated by the positive one, which is isotropic and nearly linear with the magnetic field. The possible origin of the positive MR in the Ca-doped cobaltites is discussed