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Novel Half-Metallic and Spin-Gapless Heusler Compounds
Abstract
This thesis is devoted to experimental studies of Heusler compounds CoFeCrAl, CoFeCrX (X = Si, Ge) and Mn2PtSn. These Heusler alloys present an interesting class of ferromagnetic materials for spintronic applications since they are predicted to be spin gapless semiconductors and have half-metallic properties with 100 % spin polarization at the Fermi level. In this thesis, the structural, magnetic, spin-polarization and electron- transport properties of the fabricated alloys were studied. CoFeCrAl thin films deposited on MgO exhibit nearly perfect epitaxy and a high degree of L21 Heusler order. All considered types of chemical disorder destroy the spin-gapless semiconductivity of Y-ordered CoFeCrAl, but B2 disorder and A2-type Cr-Fe disorder conserve the half-metallicity of the alloy. The transport spin polarization at the Fermi level is higher than 68%. Epitaxial thin films of inverse tetragonal Mn2PtSn were synthesized and show lattice constants a = 0.449 nm, and b = 0.615 nm. Magnetization measurements revealed an in-plane anisotropy energy of 10 Merg/cm3. CoFeCrSi and CoFeCrGe Heusler alloys crystallize in cubic L21 structures with a small site disorder. The CoFeCrSi alloy exhibited a high Curie temperature (TC = 790 K). Cubic CoFeCrGe decomposed into other compounds near 402 °C (675 K). A new tetragonal Co53.4Fe30.4Cr8.6Ge 7.6 phase with lattice parameters a = 0.760 nm, c = 0.284 nm was studied with a series of tilted electron- diffraction measurements in this work. The (Co, Fe)-rich phase was found to embedded in the matrix of a Cr-rich phase. The results show promise for the implementation of CoFeCrX (X = Al, Si, Ge) and Mn2PtSn in future spintronics devices.
Subject Area
Physics|Condensed matter physics
Recommended Citation
Jin, Yunlong, "Novel Half-Metallic and Spin-Gapless Heusler Compounds" (2017). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI10608196.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI10608196