Charge ordering in the rare earth manganates: the experimental situation

Charge-ordered phases of rare earth manganates are novel manifestations arising from interactions between the charge carriers and phonons, giving rise to the localization of carriers at specific sites in the lattice below a certain temperature. Accompanying this phenomenon, the Mn3+(eg ) orbitals and the associated lattice distortions also exhibit long range ordering (orbital ordering). What makes the manganates even more interesting is the occurrence of complex spin ordering related to anisotropic magnetic interactions. In this article, we discuss the emerging scenario of charge-ordered rare earth manganates in the light of specific case studies and highlight some of the new experimental findings related to spin, orbital and charge ordering. We also examine features such as the charge stripes and phase separation found experimentally in these materials, and discuss the factors that affect charge-ordering such as the size of A-site cations and magnetic and electric fields, as well as isotopic and chemical substitutions.