Giant magnetostructural coupling in Gd2/3Ca1/3MnO3

Abstract

We report high magnetic field magnetostructural studies on Gd2/3Ca1/3 MnO3 single crystals. A giant linear magnetostrictive effect is observed in a wide temperature range (T < 120 K). Above 25 K a large hysteresis is seen reflecting the M n magnetic moments ordering. At lower temperature (T < 15 K), a rather complicated field dependence arising from the competition between the M n and Gd magnetic sublattices is observed. The relevance of the Gd ions in the low temperature behavior is further corroborated by specific heat experiments.