Interface-enhanced sensitivity of photoconductivity to the electric current and magnetic field in La0.67Ca0.33MnO3/Nb-SrTiO3 p-n junctions

The effects of electric current and magnetic field on the photoconductivity (PC) of La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 (LCMO) films have been investigated within a comparative study on LCMO films on an n-type semiconducting Nb-doped SrTiO3 (NSTO) and insulating SrTiO3 (STO) substrates separately. At room temperature, LCMO on NSTO (LCMO/NSTO) was found to show remarkable PC effect than that on STO (LCMO/STO). More attractive is that, compared with that of LCMO/STO, the room-temperature PC of LCMO/NSTO also shows a high sensitivity to the change of current or magnetic field: for LCMO/NSTO under a light illumination with an intensity of 60 mW/cm2, the increment of current yields a decreases of PC at a rate of 7.6%/μA, while an application of magnetic field of 1.2 T can suppress PC by a percentage as high as ∼20%. In contrast, under the same stimulus of current or field, PC of LCMO/STO remains almost unchanged. The phenomena can be explained based on the interface effects correlated with the photocarrier injection, current shunting, and magnetic tunability occurred at the interface. This work demonstrates that manganite-based heterojunctions with interface engineering are promising for developing a new type of photoelectric device with high sensitivity and multifunctionality.