Epitaxially Textured Pr0.6Ca0.4MnO3 Thin Films Under Considerably Low Substrate Temperature

We report the growth of well-crystallized and epitaxially textured Pr0.6Ca0.4MnO3 thin films on SrTiO3 substrates by pulsed laser deposition at considerably low substrate temperatures, as low as 450 ◦C, without high-temperature post-annealing treatments. Although a strong ferromagnetic interaction as well as a large irreversible metamagnetic transition with a training effect have been observed for films grown at 450 ◦C, the in-plane and out-of-plane lattice ordering is slightly improved with increasing substrate temperature. Therefore, a lowest magnetic field of 2 T for melting the insulating charge-ordering state at 70 K has been observed for films grown with the substrate temperature between 550 ◦C and 600 ◦C. The formation and growth of Pr0.6Ca0.4MnO3 on SrTiO3 substrate at exceptionally low substrate temperature is qualitatively modelled by the combination of the kinetic energies and redox potentials of the components of the ablation plasma, while the heat flow from the substrate is assumed to be less important.