Short-range magnetic order in La1-xBaxCoO3 cobaltites

Magnetization versus temperature and magnetic-field measurements, M(T, $H_a$), have been carried out to study the magnetic and critical properties of polycrystalline $La_{1-x}Ba_xCoO_3$ (x = 0.3 and 0.5) cobaltites. These compounds with the density of ${\sim}6.2g/cm^3$ crystallized in the $R{\bar{3}}c$ rhombohedral and $Pm{\bar{3}}m$ cubic structures, respectively. With an applied field $H_a=200Oe$, M(T) data have revealed that the samples with x = 0.3 and 0.5 exhibit the ferromagnetic-paramagnetic (FM-PM) phase transition at the Curie temperature points $T_C=202$ and 157 K, respectively. At 4.2 K, the saturation magnetization ($M_{sat}$) decreases from 35.9 emu/g for x = 0.3-26.1 emu/g for x = 0.5. Particularly, the critical-behavior analyses in the vicinity of $T_C$ reveal all samples undergoing a second-order phase transition, with critical exponent values (${\beta}=0.328$ and ${\gamma}=1.251$ for x = 0.3, and ${\beta}=0.331$ and ${\gamma}=1.246$ for x = 0.5) close to those expected for the 3D Ising model. This proves short-range magnetic order existing in $La_{1-x}Ba_xCoO_3$. We believe that magnetic inhomogeneities due to the mixture of hole-rich FM regions (confined in the trivalent-cobalt hole-poor anti-FM matrix) and uniaxial anisotropy prevent long-range order in $La_{1-x}Ba_xCoO_3$.