Effect of oxygen nonstoichiometry on structural and magnetic properties of PrBaCo2O5+δ

The influence of oxygen content on the structural and magnetic properties of the layered Co-based perovskites PrBaCo2O5+δ (0.16<δ<0.80) was investigated by means of both X-ray diffraction and bulk magnetic measurements. An antiferromagnetic state is found for δ<0.35 compounds. For the samples with an oxygen stoichiometry δ=0.5, a strong competition between ferro- and antiferromagnetic states exists in a narrow temperature range 1800.7), could thus be arising from the percolation of oxygen-rich ferromagnetic clusters