Itinerant metamagnetism and possible spin transition in LaCoO3 by temperature/hole doping

The electronic structure of the perovskite La1−xSrxCoO3 has been obtained as a function of Sr substitution and volume from a series of generalized-gradient-corrected, full-potential, spin-density-functional band-structure calculations. The energetics of different spin configurations are estimated using the fixed-spin-moment (FSM) method. From the total energy versus spin magnetic moment curve for LaCoO3 the ground state is found to be nonmagnetic with the Co ions in a low-spin (LS) state, a result that is consistent with the experimental observations. Somewhat higher in energy, we find an intermediate-spin (IS) state with spin moment ∼1.2μB/%f.u. From the anomalous temperature dependent susceptibility along with the observation of an IS state we predict metamagnetism in LaCoO3 originating from an LS-to-IS transition. The IS state is found to be metallic and the high-spin (HS) state of LaCoO3 is predicted to be a half-metallic ferromagnet. With increasing temperature, which is simulated by a corresponding ...