Electronic transport in LCMO/BTO composites

A series of (1 ? x)La_0.67Ca_0.33MnO₃/(x)BaTiO₃ composites has been synthesized by the solid state route. Microstructural and transport studies on these samples show a complete immiscibility between metallic ferromagnet, La_0.67Ca_0.33MnO₃ (LCMO) and insulating ferroelectric, BaTiO₃ (BTO). Temperature dependent electrical transport studies show evidence of both intrinsic and extrinsic colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) effects. Inclusion of BTO in LCMO phase results in high resistive samples with a metal-insulator transition at temperature T_{p 1} originating from intrinsic effect and another dominant metal-insulator transition at temperature T_{p 2} caused because of extrinsic effect. T_{p 2} decreases up to a certain percentage of BTO content above which this trend of variation is reversed.