Size of orbital-ordering domain controlled by the itinerancy of the 3d electrons in a manganite thin film

An electronic effect on a macroscopic domain structure is found in a strongly correlated half-doped manganite film Nd0.5Sr0.5MnO3 grown on a (011) surface of SrTiO3. The sample has a high-temperature (HT) phase free from distortion above 180 K and two low-temperature (LT) phases with a large shear-mode strain and a concomitant twin structure. One LT phase has a large itinerancy (A type), and the other has a small itinerancy (CE type), while the lattice distortions they cause are almost equal. Our x-ray diffraction measurement shows that the domain size of the LT phase made by the HT-CE transition is much smaller than that by the HT-A transition, indicating that the difference in domain size is caused by the difference in orbital arrangement and resulting itinerancy of the LT phases.