Electronic structure, magnetism and antisite disorder in CoFeCrGe and CoMnCrAl quaternary Heusler alloys

We present a combined theoretical and experimental study of two quaternary Heusler alloys CoFeCrGe (CFCG) and CoMnCrAl (CMCA), promising candidates for spintronics applications. Magnetization measurement shows the saturation magnetization and transition temperature to be $3\; μ_B$, $866$ K and $0.9 \; μ_B$, $358$ K for CFCG and CMCA respectively. The magnetization values agree fairly well with our theoretical results and also obey the Slater-Pauling rule, a prerequisite for half metallicity. A striking difference between the two systems is their structure; CFCG crystallizes in fully ordered Y-type structure while CMCA has L2$_1$ disordered structure. The antisite disorder adds a somewhat unique property to the second compound, which arises due to the probabilistic mutual exchange of Al positions with Cr/Mn and such an effect is possibly expected due to comparable electronegativities of Al and Cr/Mn. {\it Ab-initio} simulation predicted a unique transition from half metallic ferromagnet to metallic antiferromagnet beyond a critical excess amount of Al in the alloy.

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