The effect of pressure and alloying on half-metallicity of quaternary Heusler compounds CoMnYZ (Z = Al, Ga, and In)

Abstract

In this work, first-principles calculations of the structural, electronic and magnetic properties of Heusler alloys CoMnYAl, CoMnYGa and CoMnYIn are presented. The full potential linearized augmented plane waves (FP-LAPW) method based on the density functional theory (DFT) has been applied. The structural results showed that CoMnYZ (Z = Al, Ga, In) compounds in the stable structure of type 1+FM were true half-metallic (HM) ferromagnets. The minority (half-metallic) band gaps were found to be 0.51 (0.158), 0.59 (0.294), and 0.54 (0.195) eV for Z = Al, Ga, and In, respectively. The characteristics of energy bands and origin of minority band gaps were also studied. In addition, the effect of volumetric and tetragonal strain on HM character was studied. We also investigated the structural, electronic and magnetic properties of the doped Heusler alloys CoMnYGa1-xAlx, CoMnYAl1-xInx and CoMnYGa1-xInx (x = 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1). The composition dependence of the lattice parameters obeys Vegard's law. All alloy compositions exhibit HM ferromagnetic behavior with a high Curie temperature (TC).