Magnetism of ordered and disordered Ni2MnAl full Heusler compounds

E. Simon, J. Gy. Vida, S. Khmelevskyi, and L. Szunyogh
Phys. Rev. B 92, 054438 – Published 28 August 2015

Abstract

Based on ab initio calculations and Monte Carlo simulations, we present a systematic study of the magnetic ground state and finite temperature magnetism of ordered and disordered Ni2MnAl full Heusler compounds. By increasing the degree of the long-range chemical disorder between the Mn and Al sublattices, the magnetic order progressively changes from the ferromagnetic state in the ordered L21 phase toward a fully compensated antiferromagnetic state in the disordered B2 phase and we also conclude that the Ni atoms exhibit induced moments. We determine the Mn-Mn interactions by using the magnetic force theorem and find dominating, but rather weak ferromagnetic couplings in the ordered L21 phase. We used a recently proposed renormalization technique to include the weak Ni moments into the spin model, which indeed remarkably increased the nearest-neighbor Mn-Mn interaction. In accordance with the total energy calculations, in the disordered compounds, strong antiferromagnetic site-antisite Mn-Mn interactions appear. Determining the spin-spin correlation functions from Monte Carlo simulations, we conclude that above the transition temperature, short-range antiferromagnetic correlations prevail between the Mn atoms. In view of the potential application of disordered Ni2MnAl as a room temperature antiferromagnet, we calculate the magnetic anisotropy energies of tetragonally distorted samples in the B2 phase and find that they are smaller by two orders in magnitude than in the frustrated antiferromagnet IrMn3.

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  • Received 18 June 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.92.054438

©2015 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

E. Simon1, J. Gy. Vida1, S. Khmelevskyi1, and L. Szunyogh1,2

  • 1Department of Theoretical Physics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budafoki út 8., H-1111 Budapest, Hungary
  • 2MTA-BME Condensed Matter Research Group, Budafoki út 8, H-1111 Budapest, Hungary

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Issue

Vol. 92, Iss. 5 — 1 August 2015

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