Electroresistance and magnetoresistance in La0.9Ba0.1MnO3 thin films

The electroresistance and magnetoresistance effects have been investigated in La0.9Ba0.1MnO3 epitaxial thin films. Tensile strain caused by substrate mismatch makes the Curie temperature T C of the film at ∼300 K. The influence of an applied dc-current on the resistance in the absence of a magnetic field was studied. Significant change of the peak resistance at different currents was found. The reduction of the peak resistance reaches ∼27% with an electric current density up to 1.3 x 105 A cm-2. We also studied colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) effect in the films. Applying a magnetic field of 2 T could lead to a magnetoresistance as large as 42%. The reduction of resistance caused by a current density ∼1.3 x 105 A cm-2 was found to be equivalent to the CMR effect caused by 1.5 T near T C. The phenomenon that the resistance in CMR manganites could be easily controlled by the electric current should be of high interest for both fundamental research and practical applications