Towards a full Heusler alloy showing room temperature half-metallicity at the surface

Abstract

In this article we investigate the surface spin polarization in a 100 nm Co2Cr0.6Fe0.4Al (CCFA) film grown ex situ epitaxially on MgO(100) with a 10 nm Fe buffer layer by means of spin resolved photoemission. We show that a careful in situ preparation of the sample surface leads to values for the room temperature spin polarization up to 45% at the Fermi level. To our knowledge, this is the highest value measured so far at the surface region of a full Heusler alloy at room temperature.

8 pages, 3 figures; submitted to J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys

References in corpus (7)

• Spintronics: Fundamentals and applications
• Geometric, electronic, and magnetic structure of Co${}_2$FeSi: Curie temperature and magnetic moment measurements and calculations
• Correlation in the transition metal based Heusler compounds Co${}_2$MnSi and Co${}_2$FeSi
• Electronic structure and spectroscopy of the quaternary Heusler alloy Co${}_2$Cr${}_{1-x}$Fe${}_x$Al
• Magnetic anisotropies and magnetization reversal of the Co${}_2$Cr${}_{0.6}$Fe${}_{0.4}$Al Heusler compound
• Epitaxial Co2Cr0.6Fe0.4Al thin films and magnetic tunneling junctions
• Epitaxy of thin films of the Heusler compound Co2Cr0.6Fe0.4Al

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Surface spin polarization of the non-stoichiometric Heusler compound Co2Mn(alpha)Si
• Structural, chemical and electronic properties of the Co2MnSi(001)/MgO interface
• Brillouin light scattering study of Co${}_2$Cr${}_{0.6}$Fe${}_{0.4}$Al and Co${}_2$FeAl Heusler compounds
• Evolution of the interfacial perpendicular magnetic anisotropy constant of the Co${}_2$FeAl/MgO interface upon annealing