Thin films of (001)-oriented Sr2FeMoO6 were deposited epitaxially onto LaAlO3 or SrTiO3 (001) substrates by pulsed laser deposition. Single-phase Sr2FeMoO6 was obtained under 0.1Torr 5N-purity Ar at 825C. The material exhibited a metallic temperature dependence and a saturation magnetization at 10K. The Curie temperature was reduced, to 380K, from the 415K which was found for tetragonal polycrystalline samples. A low remanence was attributed to the presence of antiphase boundaries. A Wheatstone bridge arrangement, which straddled a bicrystal boundary, was used to verify that spin-dependent electron transfer through grain boundaries rather than antiphase boundaries was responsible for the low-field magnetoresistance which was found in polycrystalline samples below the Curie temperature.

Grain-Boundary Room-Temperature Low-Field Magnetoresistance in Sr2FeMoO6 Films. H.Q.Yin, J.S.Zhou, R.Dass, J.P.Zhou, J.T.McDevitt, J.B.Goodenough: Journal of Applied Physics, 2000, 87[9], 6761-3