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Title: Computational investigation of half-Heusler compounds for spintronics applications

Journal Article · · Physical Review B
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [3];  [3];  [2];  [1];  [3]
  1. Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (United States)
  2. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)
  3. Univ. of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL (United States)

We present first-principles density functional calculations of the electronic structure, magnetism, and structural stability of 378 XYZ half-Heusler compounds (with X= Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Ru, Rh; Y=Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni; Z= Al, Ga, In, Si, Ge, Sn, P, As, Sb). We find that a “Slater-Pauling gap” in the density of states (i.e., a gap or pseudogap after nine states in the three atom primitive cell) in at least one spin channel is a common feature in half-Heusler compounds. We find that the presence of such a gap at the Fermi energy in one or both spin channels contributes significantly to the stability of a half-Heusler compound. We calculate the formation energy of each compound and systematically investigate its stability against all other phases in the open quantum materials database (OQMD). Here, we represent the thermodynamic phase stability of each compound as its distance from the convex hull of stable phases in the respective chemical space and show that the hull distance of a compound is a good measure of the likelihood of its experimental synthesis. We find low formation energies and mostly correspondingly low hull distances for compounds with X= Co, Rh, or N, Y= Ti or V, and Z= P, As, Sb, or Si. We identify 26 18-electron semiconductors, 45 half-metals, and 34 near half-metals with negative formation energy that follow the Slater-Pauling rule of three electrons per atom. Our calculations predict several new, as-yet unknown, thermodynamically stable phases, which merit further experimental exploration—RuVAs, CoVGe, FeVAs in the half-Heusler structure, and NiScAs, RuVP, RhTiP in the orthorhombic MgSrSi-type structure. Further, two interesting zero-moment half-metals, CrMnAs and MnCrAs, are calculated to have negative formation energy. In addition, our calculations predict a number of hitherto unreported semiconducting (e.g., CoVSn and RhVGe), half-metallic (e.g., RhVSb), and near half-metallic (e.g., CoFeSb and CoVP) half-Heusler compounds to lie close to the respective convex hull of stable phases, and thus may be experimentally realized under suitable synthesis conditions, resulting in potential candidates for various semiconducting and spintronics applications.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1544409
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1339008
Journal Information:
Physical Review B, Vol. 95, Issue 2; ISSN 2469-9950
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 97 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Half Heusler compounds: promising materials for mid-to-high temperature thermoelectric conversion journal September 2019
Inducing half metallicity with alloying in Heusler Compound CoFeMnSb journal May 2019
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Electronic, and thermoelectric properties of half-heusler compounds MCoSb (M = Ti, Zr, Hf): a first principles study journal March 2019
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Origin of half-metallicity in XCrBi (X = Hf,Ti, and Zr) half-Heusler alloys journal November 2019
Nanometer scale structural and compositional inhomogeneities of half-Heusler CoTi 1-x Fe x Sb thin films journal May 2019
Thermal, electro-magnetic and thermoelectric investigation of CoNb 1− x Ti x Sn ( x   =  0, 0.75, 0.5, 1) half-Heusler alloy journal September 2019
Artificial neural networks and vector regression models for prediction of lattice constants of half-Heusler compounds journal January 2019
Ab initio design of quaternary Heusler compounds for reconfigurable magnetic tunnel diodes and transistors journal December 2019
Recent advances and applications of machine learning in solid-state materials science journal August 2019
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Simulation study of ballistic spin-MOSFET devices with ferromagnetic channels based on some Heusler and oxide compounds text January 2018
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