Temperature dependent transport spin-polarization in the low Curie temperature complex itinerant ferromagnet EuTi1-x Nb x O3.

ABSTRACT

The physical systems with ferromagnetism and 'bad' metallicity hosting unusual transport properties are playgrounds of novel quantum phenomena. Recently EuTi1-x Nb x O3 emerged as a ferromagnetic system where non-trivial temperature dependent transport properties are observed due to coexistence and competition of various magnetic and non-magnetic scattering processes. In the ferromagnetic state, the resistivity shows a T 2 temperature dependence possibly due to electron-magnon scattering and above the Curie temperature [Formula see text], the dependence changes to T 3/2 behaviour indicating a correlation between transport and magnetic properties. In this paper, we show that the transport spin-polarization ([Formula see text]) in EuTi1-x Nb x O3, a low Curie temperature ferromagnet, is as high (∼40%) as that in some of the metallic ferromagnets with high Curie temperatures. In addition, owing to the low Curie temperature of EuTi1-x Nb x O3, the temperature (T) dependence of [Formula see text] could be measured systematically up to [Formula see text] which revealed a proportionate relationship with magnetization [Formula see text] versus T. This indicates that such proportionality is far more universally valid than the ferromagnets with ideal parabolic bands. Furthermore, our band structure calculations not only helped to understand the origin of such high spin polarization in EuTi1-x Nb x O3 but also provided a route to estimate the Hubbard U parameter in complex metallic ferromagnets in general using experimental inputs.