Strain-induced Local Transport Properties in Epitaxial Pr0.7Ca0.3MnO3 Thin Films

Pr0.7Ca0.3MnO3 (PCMO) thin films have been deposited on SrTiO3 (STO) substrates by using a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method. By changing the in-situ annealing condition after the film deposition, we were able to prepare two different sets of films, where coexistence of both strained and relaxed structures was obtained using a synchrotron X-ray diffraction. We observe that the density of the strained structure depended on the cooling condition, as observed from the mesh scan of HL reciprocal lattice. In addition, structural characterizations of the films were carried out, and the local transport properties are discussed in terms of the strain-induced misfit at the grain boundary.