Magnetism, microstructure, and photoelectron spectroscopy of Nd0.7 Ce0.3 Mn O3 thin films

This paper presents an experimental investigation on the magnetism, microstructure, and electronic structures of epitaxial Nd0.7 Ce0.3 Mn O3 thin films without Ce-rich impurities on the microstructure. Since the presence of Ce-rich impurities cause extrinsic ferromagnetism, investigating systems without such impurities is extremely important and essential to elucidate the intrinsic origin of magnetism in tetravalent cation-doped manganites. The absence of Ce-rich impurities was confirmed by high-resolution transmission microscopy and Ce ions were found to exist within the perovskite structure. Well-crystallized films exhibited ferromagnetic behavior with the Curie temperature around 65 K. In addition, the photoelectron spectroscopy demonstrated the presence of mixed valence state of Mn2+ and Mn3+.