Anomalous strain effect on magnetic properties of La1−xBaxMnO3 epitaxial thin films

We report an anomalous strain effect on magnetic properties in La1−xBaxMnO3 (LBMO) thin films. Epitaxial LBMO films grown on SrTiO3(100) (STO) single‐crystal substrate by pulsed laser deposition suffer strains due to the lattice mismatch between LBMO and STO. For films with x = 0.1 and x = 0.2, tensile strain enhances the ferromagnetic state, resulting in the ferromagnetic Curie temperature TC increasing significantly compared with the corresponding bulk materials. However, for x = 0.3 and x = 0.33, TC decreases in thin films. These results are very different from the previous reported strain effect in other colossal magnetoresistance manganite thin films, and can be interpreted by considering the strain‐induced modification of orbital eg stability.