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The Ohmic spin diode (OSD) is a recent concept in spintronics, which is based on half-metallic magnets (HMMs) and spin-gapless semiconductors (SGSs). Quaternary Heusler compounds offer a unique platform to realize the OSD for room temperature applications as these materials possess very high Curie temperatures as well as half-metallic and spin-gapless semiconducting behavior within the same family. Using state-of-the-art first-principles calculations combined with the non-equilibrium Greens function method we design four different OSDs based on half-metallic and spin-gapless semiconducting quaternary Heusler compounds. All four OSDs exhibit linear current-voltage ($I-V$) characteristics with zero threshold voltage $V_T$. We show that these OSDs possess a small leakage current, which stems from the overlap of the conduction and valence band edges of opposite spin channels around the Fermi level in the SGS electrodes. The obtained on/off current ratios vary between $30$ and $10^5$. Our results can pave the way for the experimental fabrication of the OSDs within the family of ordered quaternary Heusler compounds.
Reconfigurable magnetic tunnel diodes and transistors are a new concept in spintronics. The realization of such a device requires the use of materials with unique spin-dependent electronic properties such as half-metallic magnets (HMMs) and spin-gapless semiconductors (SGSs). Quaternary Heusler compounds offer a unique platform to design within the same family of compounds HMMs and SGSs with similar lattice constants to make coherent growth of the consecutive spacers of the device possible. Employing state-of-the-art first-principles calculations, we scan the quaternary Heusler compounds and identify suitable candidates for these spintronic devices combining the desirable properties: (i) HMMs with sizable energy gap or SGSs with spin gaps both below and above the Fermi level, (ii) high Curie temperature, (iii) convex hull energy distance less than 0.20 eV, and (iv) negative formation energies. Our results pave the way for the experimental realization of the proposed magnetic tunnel diodes and transistors.
Based on high throughput density functional theory calculations, we performed systematic screening for spin-gapless semiconductors (SGSs) in quaternary Heusler alloys XX 0 YZ (X, X 0 , and Y are transition metal elements without Tc, and Z is one of B, Al, Ga, In, Si, Ge, Sn, Pb, P, As, Sb, and Bi). Following the empirical rule, we focused on compounds with 21, 26, or 28 valence electrons, resulting in 12, 000 possible chemical compositions. After systematically evaluating the thermodynamic, mechanical, and dynamical stabilities, we successfully identified 70 stable SGSs, confirmed by explicit electronic structure calculations with proper magnetic ground states. It is demonstrated that all four types of SGSs can be realized, defined based on the spin characters of the bands around the Fermi energy, and the type-II SGSs show promising transport properties for spintronic applications. The effect of spin-orbit coupling is investigated, resulting in large anisotropic magnetoresistance and anomalous Nernst effects.
Mutiferroics are a novel class of next generation multifunctional materials, which display simultaneous magnetic spin, electric dipole, and ferroelastic ordering, and have drawn increasing interest due to their multi-functionality for a variety of device applications. Since single-phase materials exist rarely in nature with such cross-coupling properties, an intensive research activity is being pursued towards the discovery of new single-phase multiferroic materials and the design of new engineered materials with strong magneto-electric (ME) coupling. This review article summarizes the development of different kinds of multiferroic material: single-phase and composite ceramic, laminated composite, and nanostructured thin films. Thin-film nanostructures have higher magnitude direct ME coupling values and clear evidence of indirect ME coupling compared with bulk materials. Promising ME coupling coefficients have been reported in laminated composite materials in which signal to noise ratio is good for device fabrication. We describe the possible applications of these materials.
We present an ab initio calculation of the k and spin-resolved electronic lifetimes in the half-metallic Heusler compounds Co(2)MnSi and Co(2)FeSi. We determine the spin-flip and spin-conserving contributions to the lifetimes and study in detail the behavior of the lifetimes around states that are strongly spin-mixed by spin-orbit coupling. We find that, for non-degenerate bands, the spin mixing alone does not determine the energy dependence of the (spin-flip) lifetimes. Qualitatively, the lifetimes reflect the lineup of electron and hole bands. We predict that different excitation conditions lead to drastically different spin-flip dynamics of excited electrons and may even give rise to an enhancement of the non-equilibrium spin polarization.