No Arabic abstract
We report on the influence of the improved L21 ordering degree on the magnetic properties of Co2MnSi Heusler films. Different fractions of the L21 phase are obtained by different post-growth annealing temperatures ranging from 350 degC to 500 degC. Room temperature magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements reveal an increase of the coercivity at an intermediate annealing temperature of 425 degC, which is a fingerprint of an increased number of pinning centers at this temperature. Furthermore, Brillouin light scattering studies show that the improvement of the L21 order in the Co2MnSi films is correlated with a decrease of the saturation magnetization by about 9%. The exchange stiffness constant of Co2MnSi, however, increases by about 8% when the L21 order is improved. Moreover, we observe a drop of the cubic anisotropy constant K1 by a factor of 10 for an increasing amount of the L21 phase.
The physical properties of Fe2CoAl (FCA) Heusler alloy are systematically investigated using the first-principles calculations within generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and GGA+U. The influence of atomic ordering with respect to the Wyckoff sites on the phase stability, magnetism and half metallicity in both the conventional L21 and XA phases of FCA is focused in this study. Various possible hypothetical structures viz., L21, XA-I, and XA-II are prepared by altering atomic occupancies at their Wyckoff sites. At first, we have determined the stable phase of FCA considering various non-magnetic (or paramagnetic), ferromagnetic (FM) and antiferromagnetic (AFM) configurations. Out of these, the ferromagnetic (FM) XA-I structure is found to be energetically most stable. The total magnetic moments per cell are not in agreement with the Slater-Pauling (SP) rule in any phases; therefore, the half-metallicity is not observed in any configurations. However, FM ordered XA-I type FCA shows 78% spin polarization at EF. Interestingly, the results of XA-I type FCA are closely matched with the experimental results.
We have used oxygen ions irradiation to generate controlled structural disorder in thin manganite films. Conductive atomic force microscopy CAFM), transport and magnetic measurements were performed to analyze the influence of the implantation process in the physical properties of the films. CAFM images show regions with different conductivity values, probably due to the random distribution of point defect or inhomogeneous changes of the local Mn3+/4+ ratio to reduce lattice strains of the irradiated areas. The transport and magnetic properties of these systems are interpreted in this context. Metal-insulator transition can be described in the frame of a percolative model. Disorder increases the distance between conducting regions, lowering the observed TMI. Point defect disorder increases localization of the carriers due to increased disorder and locally enhanced strain field. Remarkably, even with the inhomogeneous nature of the samples, no sign of low field magnetoresistance was found. Point defect disorder decreases the system magnetization but doesn t seem to change the magnetic transition temperature. As a consequence, an important decoupling between the magnetic and the metal-insulator transition is found for ion irradiated films as opposed to the classical double exchange model scenario.
Half Metal Magnets are of great interest in the field of spintronics because of their potential full spin-polarization at the Fermi level and low magnetization damping. The high Curie temperature and predicted 0.7eV minority spin gap make the Heusler alloy Co2MnSi very promising for applications.We investigated the half-metallic magnetic character of this alloy using spin-resolved photoemission, ab initio calculation and ferromagnetic resonance. At the surface of Co2MnSi, a gap in the minority spin channel is observed, leading to 100% spin polarization. However, this gap is 0.3 eV below the Fermi level and a minority spin state is observed at the Fermi level. We show that a minority spin gap at the Fermi energy can nevertheless be recovered either by changing the stoichiometry of the alloy or by covering the surface by Mn, MnSi or MgO. This results in extremely small damping coefficients reaching values as low as 7x 10-4.
We report the deposition of thin Co$_2$FeSi films by RF magnetron sputtering. Epitaxial (100)-oriented and L2$_1$ ordered growth is observed for films grown on MgO(100) substrates. (110)-oriented films on Al$_2$O$_3$(110) show several epitaxial domains in the film plane. Investigation of the magnetic properties reveals a saturation magnetization of 5.0 $mu_B/f.u.$ at low temperatures. The temperature dependence of the resistivity $rho_{xx}(T)$ exhibits a crossover from a T^3.5 law at T<50K to a T^1.65 behaviour at elevated temperatures. $rho_{xx}(H)$ shows a small anisotropic magnetoresistive effect. A weak dependence of the normal Hall effect on the external magnetic field indicates the compensation of electron and hole like contributions at the Fermi surface.
We report the evolution of magnetic moment as well as magnetic anisotropy with crystalline order in Co$_2$MnSi thin films grown on $(100)$ MgO by pulsed laser deposition. The films become more ordered as the annealing temperature ($T_A$) increases from 400 to 600 $^0$C. The extent of emph{L}$2_1$ ordering in the films annealed at 600 $^0$C is $approx 96%$. The static magnetization measurements by vibrating sample magnetometry shows a maximum moment of 4.95 $mu_B$ per formula unit with low coercivity ($H_C$ $approx$ 65 Oe) in the films annealed at 600 $^0$C. A rigorous analysis of the azimuthal and polar angle dependent ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) measured at several temperatures allows determination of various anisotropy fields relevant to our system as a function of $T_A$. Finally, we have evaluated the exchange stiffness constant down to 100 K using spin wave modes in FMR spectra. We have also estimated the exchange energies as well as stiffness constant by varying the lattice parameter emph{ab-initio} using the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker method.