Structure, magnetism, and magnetic compensation behavior of Co50-xMn25Ga25+x and Co50-xMn25+xGa25 Heusler alloys

The structure, magnetism, magnetic compensation behavior, exchange interaction, and electronic structures of Co50-xMn25Ga25+x and Co50-xMn25+xGa25 (x=0-25) alloys have been systematically investigated by both experiments and first-principles calculations. We found that all the samples exhibited body centered cubic structures with high degree of atomic ordering. With increasing Ga content, the composition dependence of lattice parameter shows a kink point at the middle composition in Co50-xMn25Ga25+x alloys, which can be attributed to the enhanced covalent hybridization between the main-group Ga and the transition-metal atoms. Moreover, a complicated magnetic competition has been revealed in Co50-xMn25Ga25+x alloys, which causes the Curie temperature dramatically decrease and results in a magnetic moment compensation behavior. In Co50-xMn25+xGa25 alloys, however, with increasing Mn content, an additional ferrimagnetic configuration is established in the native ferromagnetic matrix, which causes the molecular moment monotonously decrease and the exchange interaction enhance gradually. The electronic structure calculations indicate that the Co50-xMn25+xGa25 alloys are likely to be in a coexistence state of the itinerant and localized magnetism. Our study will be helpful to understand the nature of magnetic ordering as well as to tune magnetic compensation and electronic properties of Heusler alloys. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4794811]