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Register a new userDesign of compensated ferrimagnetic Heusler alloys for giant tunable exchange bias
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The discovery of materials with improved functionality can be accelerated by rational material design. Heusler compounds with tunable magnetic sublattices allow to implement this concept to achieve novel magnetic properties. Here, we have designed a family of Heusler alloys with a compensated ferrimagnetic state. In the vicinity of the compensation composition in Mn-Pt-Ga, a giant exchange bias (EB) of more than 3 T and a similarly large coercivity are established. The large exchange anisotropy originates from the exchange interaction between the compensated host and ferrimagnetic clusters that arise from intrinsic anti-site disorder. We demonstrate the applicability of our design concept on a second material, Mn-Fe-Ga, with a magnetic transition above room temperature, exemplifying the universality of the concept and the feasibility of room-temperature applications. Our study points to a new direction for novel magneto-electronic devices. At the same time it suggests a new route for realizing rare-earth free exchange-biased hard magnets, where the second quadrant magnetization can be stabilized by the exchange bias.
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We report the observation of large exchange bias in Ni50-xCoxMn38Sb12 Heusler alloys with x=0, 2, 3, 4, 5, which is attributed to the coexistence of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic phases in the martensitic phase. The phase coexistence is possibly due to the supercooling of the high temperature ferromagnetic phase and the predominant antiferromagnetic component in the martensitic phase. The presence of exchange bias is well supported by the observation of training effect. The exchange bias field increases with Co concentration. The maximum value of 480 Oe at T=3K is observed in x=5 after field cooling in 50 kOe, which is almost double the highest value reported so far in any Heusler alloy system. Increase in the antiferromagnetic coupling after Co substitution is found to be responsible for the increase in the exchange bias.
The interplay of symmetry and quenched disorder leads to some of the most fundamentally interesting and technologically important properties of correlated materials. It also poses the most vexing of theoretical challenges. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the study of spin glasses. A spin glass is characterized by an ergodic landscape of states - an innumerable number of possibilities that are only weakly distinguished energetically, if at all. We show in the material Fe$_x$NbS$_2$, this landscape of states can be biased by coexisitng antiferromagnetic order. This process leads to a phenomenon of broad technological importance: giant, tunable exchange bias. We observe exchange biases that exceed those of conventional materials by more than two orders of magnitude. This work illustrates a novel route to giant exchange bias by leveraging the interplay of frustration and disorder in exotic materials.
In recent years, antiferromagnetic spintronics has received much attention since ideal antiferromagnets do not produce stray fields and are much more stable to external magnetic fields compared to materials with net magnetization. Akin to antiferromagnets, compensated ferrimagnets have zero net magnetization but have the potential for large spin-polarization and strong out of plane magnetic anisotropy, and, hence, are ideal candidates for high density memory applications. Here, we demonstrate that a fully compensated magnetic state with a tunable magnetic anisotropy is realized in Mn-Pt-Ga based tetragonal Heusler thin films. Furthermore, we show that a bilayer formed from a fully compensated and a partially compensated Mn-Pt-Ga layer, exhibits a large interfacial exchange bias up to room temperature. The present work establishes a novel design principle for spintronic devices that are formed from materials with similar elemental compositions and nearly identical crystal and electronic structures. Such devices are of significant practical value due to their improved properties such as thermal stability. The flexible nature of Heusler materials to achieve tunable magnetizations, and anisotropies within closely matched materials provides a new direction to the growing field of antiferromagnetic spintronics.
The exchange bias effect is an essential component of magnetic memory and spintronic devices. Whereas recent research has shown that anisotropies perpendicular to the device plane provide superior stability against thermal noise, it has proven remarkably difficult to realize perpendicular exchange bias in thin-film structures. Here we demonstrate a strong perpendicular exchange bias effect in heterostructures of the quasi-two-dimensional canted antiferromagnet La$_2$CuO$_4$ and ferromagnetic (La,Sr)MnO$_3$ synthesized by ozone-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. The magnitude of this effect can be controlled via the doping level of the cuprate layers. Canted antiferromagnetism of layered oxides is thus a new and potentially powerful source of uniaxial anisotropy in magnetic devices.
XXYZ equiatomic quaternary Heusler alloys (EQHAs) containing Cr, Al, and select Group IVB elements ($textit{M}$ = Ti, Zr, Hf) and Group VB elements ($textit{N}$ = V, Nb, Ta) were studied using state-of-the-art density functional theory to determine their effectiveness in spintronic applications. Each alloy is classified based on their spin-dependent electronic structure as a half-metal, a spin gapless semiconductor, or a spin filter material. We predict several new fully-compensated ferrimagnetic spin filter materials with small electronic gaps and large exchange splitting allowing for robust spin polarization with small resistance. CrVZrAl, CrVHfAl, CrTiNbAl, and CrTiTaAl are identified as particularly robust spin filter candidates with an exchange splitting of $sim 0.20$ eV. In particular, CrTiNbAl and CrTiTaAl have exceptionally small band gaps of $sim 0.10$ eV. Moreover, in these compounds, a spin asymmetric electronic band gap is maintained in 2 of 3 possible atomic arrangements they can take, making the electronic properties less susceptible to random site disorder. In addition, hydrostatic stress is applied to a subset of the studied compounds in order to determine the stability and tunability of the various electronic phases. Specifically, we find the CrAlV$textit{M}$ subfamily of compounds to be exceptionally sensitive to hydrostatic stress, yielding transitions between all spin-dependent electronic phases.
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