Paper Title
Study of Heusler Alloys For Spintronic Application
Abstract
This study is focused on certain Heusler alloys to search for half metallicity. The alloy CoMnCrGa was prepared
by arc melting technique and its crystal structure was studied using X-ray diffraction. The disorder in the alloy was also
analyzed in detail. The X-Ray refinement of the diffraction pattern was done using Fullprof suite in order to establish the
phase purity of the alloy. From the Rietveld refinement, lattice constant for CoMnCrGa, is found to be 5.84 ± 0.01 Å. The
alloy crystallizes in LiMgPdSn prototype structure with space group F4¯3m (#216). The magnetization study of the alloy was
done in a Vibrating Sample Magnetometer. Both Zero Field Cooled measurement (ZFC) and Field Cooled measurements
(FC) reveal that the alloy has a Curie temperature above 400 K. Theoretical studies were carried out using Quantum
ESPRESSO. It predicts that the alloy has a nearly half metallic character. Besides, the theoretical calculations for alloys
CoFeScSb and CoFeYSb have also shown half-metallic character for the minimum energy configuration. Hence,
theoretically both these alloys are useful candidates for spintronic application.
Keywords- Half metallic ferromagnet, Heusler alloy, Quantum ESPRESSO, Spintronics.