Suppression of charge and antiferromagnetic ordering in La0.5Ca0.5MnO3 nanoparticles

The intermediate band-width manganite La0.5Ca0.5MnO3 has a CE type charge, orbital and antiferromagnetic order below 195 K owing to strong electronic correlation and commensurability effect. We have critically investigated in details all the possible mechanisms behind the destabilization of charge/orbital ordering in La0.5Ca0.5MnO3 with the reduction of grain size in the nanometric regime as evidenced from our various experimental results. We have tried to found out a universal scenario to explain such behavior in nanometric manganites in general. This study shows that the room temperature Pnma perovskite structure, correlated with the lattice distortion, Mn-O distances and octahedral tilts, is practically unaffected with the reduction of particle size. However, in these nanocrystalline La0.5Ca0.5MnO3, the stable charge ordered state with antiferromagnetic ordering becomes significantly suppressed and FM ordering spontaneously appears below T(c) = 260 K as compared to its bulk counterpart. From strong experimental evidences on nano and bulk manganites, we revisit this issue and also discuss the absence of correlation between size reduction and pressure effects on manganites. We argue from a phenomenological analysis that the above observations could be best attributed to enhanced surface disorder in the nanosized half-doped manganite grains which is likely to be general in all nano size charge ordered manganites.