Effect of la doping on magnetotransport and magnetic properties of double perovskite Sr₂FeMoO₆ system

We have investigated the magnetotransport and magnetic properties on polycrystalline samples of Sr_2-xLa_xFeMoO ₆ (x=0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0). The magnitude of intergrain tunneling magnetoresistance with low magnetic field of 0.88 T for x=0.2 and 0.4 samples are as large as 5% and 7% at room temperature and 13% and 10% at 10 K, respectively. The increase of coercivity (Hc), ratio of remanent magnetization with respect to saturation magnetization (Mr/Ms), high saturation fields, and reduction of the saturation magnetization indicate that random disorder of spin orientation is mainly responsible for enhancement of the low-field magnetoresistance for samples with x≤0.4. Whereas rapid drop of Hc, Mr/Ms, Mr, and saturation fields for samples with x>0.4 signifies the growth of antiphase boundary, which gives rise to lower values of low-field MR.