Abstract:
Magnetic and transport properties of Ti substituted La(0.67)Sr(0.33)MnO(3) are drastically affected with a change in preparation conditions. Low temperature infra-red absorption measurements reveal that this is perhaps due to inhomogeniety in substitution of Ti4+ on Mn sites. It is found that, in the high temperature annealed samples, the substitution of Ti supresses the double exchange interaction due to the formation of Mn3+-O-Ti4+ chains. While in the low temperature annealed case substitution of Ti causes formation of isolated ferromagnetic clusters linked to each other by a variable range hopping polaron.