This investigation is mainly concerned with the effect of annealing temperature (600, 700, 800 and 900 °C) in air for (La 0.7 Ba 0.3 MnO 3 ) 1-x /(NiO) x with x = 0 and x = 0.10 samples. It was shown that the annealing temperature does not affect the structure and parameters of rhombohedral lattice of the samples. However, it is observed that the annealing treatment has a notable effect on the electrical resistivity and the metal-semiconductor transition temperature T ms . Temperature dependent magnetization measurements showed a decrease in Curie temperature T C with annealing temperature. In the same time, annealing process decreases the magnetoresistance of La 0.7 Ba 0.3 MnO 3 , in contrast to (La 0.7 The magnetoresistive material was mixed with an insulator material to enhance the extrinsic CMR that depending on grain boundaries [6] and spin tunneling [7], that CMR may increase under low magnetic fields known as low field magnetoresistance (LFMR). The importance of LFMR refers to use low magnetic field to get high values of MR what is making it useful for applications. This LFMR can be affected by other several factors; one of them is annealing temperature that can affect the grain size and hence the physical properties including LFMR. An annealing effect has a little attention in this direction, especially in LBMO/insulator. Therefore in this work the effects of annealing temperature on the electrical, magnetic, magnetoresistance and thermoelectric properties of La 0.7 Ba 0.3 MnO 3 (LBMO) and (La 0.7 Ba 0.3 MnO 3 ) 0.9 /(NiO) 0.1 (LBMO/NiO) are examined.
Experimental(La 0.7 Ba 0.3 MnO 3 ) 1-x /(NiO) x ceramic samples were prepared by the conventional solid state reaction method (x = = 0.0 & 0.10). La 2 O 3 , BaCO 3 and MnCO 3 raw materials were mixed in stoichiometric proportions, ground, pelletized and calcined at 900 °C for 24 h. It was reground again and pelletized and then sintered at 1100 °C for 24 h. NiO insulator was added in stoichiometric portions to the sintered La 0.7 Ba 0.3 MnO 3 compound and lightly ground, then pressed and put in 1000 °C for 24 h. The composites of LBMO and LBMO/NiO annealed for 2 h at 600, 700, 800 and 900 °C. Electrical resistivity was measured by van der Pauw technique in the presence and absence of 0.6 T magnetic field. Samples were examined by x ray, using Brucker (Axs-D& Advance) powder diffractometer at room temperature with Cu (K α ) radiation (λ = 1.5406 Å). The microstructure was investigated by Jeol JSM-6610LV