Anti-site disorder and improved functionality of MnNi{\it X} ({\it X}= Al, Ga, In, Sn) inverse Heusler alloys
arXiv:1410.1690 · doi:10.1063/1.4896906
Abstract
Recent first-principles calculations have predicted MnNi{\it X} ({\it X}=Al, Ga, In, Sn) alloys to be magnetic shape memory alloys. Moreover, experiments on MnNiGa and MnNiSn suggest that the alloys deviate from the perfect inverse Heusler arrangement and that there is chemical disorder at the sublattices with tetrahedral symmetry. In this work, we investigate the effects of such chemical disorder on phase stabilities and magnetic properties using first-principles electronic structure methods. We find that except MnNiAl, all other alloys show signatures of martensitic transformations in presence of anti-site disorder at the sublattices with tetrahedral symmetry. This improves the possibilities of realizing martensitic transformations at relatively low fields and the possibilities of obtaining significantly large inverse magneto-caloric effects, in comparison to perfect inverse Heusler arrangement of atoms. We analyze the origin of such improvements in functional properties by investigating electronic structures and magnetic exchange interactions.
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Cited by in corpus (4)
- Interplay of phase sequence and electronic structure in the modulated martensites of MnNiGa from first-principles
- Effect of Fe and Co substitution on martensitic stability, elastic, electronic and magnetic properties of MnNiGa: insights from \textit{ab initio} calculations
- Antisite disorder and phase segregation in MnNiSn
- Site occupancy, composition and magnetic structure dependencies of martensitic transformation in MnNiSn