Abstract :
We report magnetic and photomagnetic studies on polycrystalline Nd0.7Sr0.3CoO3. Strong irreversibility in field cooled and zero field cooled data is observed. The hysteresis plot exhibits a very high coercivity at low temperatures. On photon irradiation, a decrease in the coercivity and an irreversible magnetization enhancement are observed. The analysis of all these data suggest that microscopic phase separation of competing ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism and/or light-induced spin conversion processes among low, intermediate and high spin states of cobalt ions are responsible for all the properties.
