Improvement in properties of La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 polycrystalline film due to silver addition

Abstract

A spray pyrolysis technique has been employed to prepare Ag added La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 (Ag-LCMO) polycrystalline film and its properties are compared with those of the La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 (LCMO) film prepared under similar conditions. The addition of silver in LCMO films improves surface morphology and reduces the lattice constant. During the synthesis process, the silver in the Ag-LCMO film melts and segregates at the grain boundaries. The semiconductor-metal transition temperature (Tp) increases by 10 K and normalized voltage noise reduces by more than one order of magnitude. Improvement in surface morphology and better oxygenation of the film due to the presence of silver leads to improvement in the properties of polycrystalline LCMO film.