Electronic structure, optical and magnetic properties of Co${}_2$FeGe Heusler alloy films

Abstract

Optical properties of ferromagnetic half-metallic full-Heusler Co${}_2$FeGe alloy are investigated experimentally and theoretically. Co${}_2$FeGe thin films were obtained by DC magnetron sputtering and show the saturation magnetization at $T$=10 K of $m\approx$5.6 ${\mu }_B$/f.u., close to the value predicted by the Slater-Pauling rule. First-principles calculations of the electronic structure and the dielectric tensor are performed using the full-potential linearized-augmented-plane-wave method in the generalized gradient (GGA) and GGA+U approximations. The measured interband optical conductivity spectrum for the alloy exhibits a strong absorption band in the 1 - 4 eV energy range with pronounced fine structure, which agrees well with the calculated half-metallic spectrum of the system, suggesting a near perfect spin-polarization in the material.

arXiv comment6 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Calculated electronic and magnetic properties of the half-metallic, transition metal based Heusler compounds
• Sources of experimental errors in the observation of nanoscale magnetism
• Optical and magneto-optical properties of ferromagnetic full-Heusler films: experiments and first-principles calculations

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Large magnetocrystalline anisotropy in tetragonally distorted Heuslers: a systematic study
• Half-metallic Ferromagnets, Spin Gapless Semiconductors, and Topological Semimetals Based on Heusler Alloys
• First-principles calculations and experimental studies on Co2FeGe Heusler alloy nanoparticles for spintronics applications
• High T${}_C$ ferromagnetic inverse Heusler alloys: A comparative study of Fe${}_2$RhSi and Fe${}_2$RhGe