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Investigation of the quaternary Fe2-xCoxMnSi alloys by structural, magnetic, resistivity and spin polarization measurements

Effects of the Co substitution have been observed on the structural, magnetic and magneto-transport properties of Fe2-xCoxMnSi alloy. Curie temperature (TC) and saturation magnetization (MS) of these alloys increased linearly with the Co substitution. Competitive magnetic interaction between ferromagnetic (FM) and anti-ferromagnetic (AFM) phases exists in Fe2-xCoxMnSi for x less than 0.2, AFM phase is completely disappears for x greater than or equal to 0.2. The value of Rhodes-Wohlfarth ratio pc/ps is greater than one for these alloys which is the characteristics of iterant magnetism present in the system. Mössbauer spectroscopic measurements have been done to investigate the atomic disorder and local magnetic moment for some x values. Resistivity measurements also confirm the stability of ferromagnetism with the concentration of Co and also show a sign of half metallicity. Resistivity shows semiconducting behaviour for x = 0.4 which is interesting in view of spin gapless semiconductors.