Giant dielectric susceptibility and magnetocapacitance effect in manganites at room temperature

Extremely high values of the relative permittivity up to 10⁷ and the magnetocapacitance up to 10⁵% have been found in La_{1 − x} Sr _x MnO₃ single crystals (x = 0.1, 0.11). These phenomena are observed even at room temperature. The observed behavior can be a consequence of the strong interaction among charge, spin, and lattice degrees of freedom, which leads to charge and phase separation in the regime before the percolation threshold.