Anisotropic Melting Path of Charge-Ordering Insulator in LSMO/STO Superlattice.

Multiple phases coexist in manganite with simultaneously active couplings, and the transition among them depends on the relative intensities of different interactions. However, the melting path with variable intensities is unclear. The concentration and the ordering of oxygen vacancy in previous work are found to induce ferromagnetic charge-ordering insulator phase in [(La 0.7 Sr 0.3 MnO 3 ) 10 /(SrTiO 3 ) 5 ] n superlattice, which translates into metallic phase with magnetic field H and temperature T. In the current work, the H-T phase diagram for current I//[100] and I//[110] shows a large difference with H normal to the film plane, which is ascribed to the response of a variable range of hopping process to H with the in-plane anisotropic hopping probability of charge carrier. With H rotating from the out-of-plane to the in-plane direction, the preferred occupancy of the 3 d z 2 - r 2 $3{d}_{{z}^2 - {r}^2}$ orbital causes a decrease of spin-orbital coupling and lowers the activation energy, inducing a gentler melting process of a charge-ordering insulator. This work shows that the melting path of a charge-ordering insulator phase can be largely modulated in manganite with anisotropy.