Kinetic pathway facilitated by a phase competition to achieve a metastable electronic phase

We show that ground state phase competition significantly decreases the critical cooling rate required for the kinetic avoidance of a first-order phase transition and thus facilitates the creation of metastable electronic states. This principle is revealed for the phase transition between antiferromagnetic charge-orbital-ordered insulating and ferromagnetic metallic states in the so-called colossal magnetoresistive manganite ${\mathrm{Nd}}_{0.5}{\mathrm{Sr}}_{0.5}{\mathrm{MnO}}_{3}$. In a phase competition situation, we achieve reversible and nonvolatile control of bulk magnetization by $1{\ensuremath{\mu}}_{\mathrm{B}}/\mathrm{f}.\mathrm{u}.$ and resistivity by $\ensuremath{\sim}1000%$ by applying electric pulses to exploit electric heating and subsequent rapid cooling.