Ferromagnetic long-range ordering in nano-crystalline La0.7Ca0.3Mn1-xNixO3(x=0, 0.02) manganites

Nanosized La0.7Ca0.3Mn1-xNixO3 (x = 0, 0.02) manganites were synthesized via the auto-combustion method. The critical behavior of these samples was then carefully investigated by analyzing the results of static magnetic measurements near their critical temperatures. The samples exhibited second-order phase transition, and the effect of Ni doping was to lower the critical temperature. The analysis of the experimental data was carried out by means of various techniques, such as modified Arrott plots, the Kouvel-Fisher method, and critical isotherm analysis, which revealed that the values of the critical exponents beta, gamma, and delta are close to those theoretically predicted by mean-field theory. By using the Widom scaling relation and the universal scaling hypothesis, the dependability of the obtained values of the critical exponents was confirmed. Moreover, the temperature dependence of the spontaneous magnetization was estimated from the analysis of the variation of the magnetic entropy change with the magnetization within the framework of mean-field theory. Interestingly, the spontaneous magnetization determined from the entropy change and that obtained from classical extrapolation of the Arrott curves displayed high concordance. These results strongly suggested that the interactions among spins in the investigated compound are long-range.