Low-moment ferrimagnetic phase of the Heusler compound Cr2CoAl

Abstract

Synthesizing half-metallic fully-compensated ferrimagnets that form in the inverse Heusler phase could lead to superior spintronic devices. These materials would have high spin polarization at room temperature with very little fringing magnetic fields. Previous theoretical studies indicated that Cr2CoAl should form in a stable inverse Heusler lattice due to its low activation energy. Here, stoichiometric Cr2CoAl samples were arc-melted and annealed at varying temperatures, followed by studies of their structural and magnetic properties. High-resolution synchrotron X-ray diffraction revealed a chemically ordered Heusler phase in addition to CoAl and Cr phases. Soft X-ray magnetic circular dichroism revealed that the Cr and Co magnetic moments are antiferromagnetically oriented leading to the observed low magnetic moment in Cr2CoAl.

Submitted to J. Magn. Magn. Mater

References in corpus (2)

• Antiferromagnetic phase of the gapless semiconductor V3Al
• Atomic moments in Mn2CoAl thin films analyzed by X-ray magnetic circular dichroism

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Materials design criteria for ultra-high thermoelectric power factors in metals
• Magnetic properties of low-moment ferrimagnetic Heusler Cr2CoGa thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy
• Noncentrosymmetric compensated half-metal hosting pure spin Weyl nodes, triple nodal points, nodal loops, and nexus fermions
• Structural and magnetic behavior of Cr${}_2$Co${}_{(1-x)}$Cr${}_x$Al inverse Heusler alloys