A combined experimental and computational approach on La0.6Sr0.4MnO3 perovskite

We synthesize a high quality Sr-doped lanthanum manganite using solid state reaction route to investigate the various properties for device applications. The crystal structure of the synthesized perovskite was studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern and also compared with the crystallographic data obtained from the simulation calculations. The magnetization as a function of applied magnetic field and temperature of La0.6Sr0.4MnO3 exhibits ferromagnetic metal phase with the Curie temperature of 361 K. The electrical resistivity with temperature unexpectedly shows semiconducting behavior due to the intergrain effects. On the other hand, the energy dispersion studied by first principles calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) demonstrates metallic conduction in conformity with the available experimental results. No energy gap in the absorption spectrum done by UV–Visible spectrophotometer of this manganite also confirms the nature of identical conductivity. Finally, a quasi-harmonic Debye model was employed to calculate the thermal characteristics like Debye temperature, specific heat capacities, volume expansion coefficient, etc. in this LSMO perovskite. •The perovskite La0.6Sr0.4MnO3 manganite is synthesized by solid state reaction technique.•The phase structure is confirmed by XRD pattern.•A weak remanence and coercive field at low temperature is analogous to soft ferromagnetism.•The energy dispersion by first principles DFT shows metallic conduction.