Appearance of half-metallicity in the quaternary Heusler alloys

I report systematic first-principles calculations of the quaternary Heusler alloys, e.g. Co2[Cr1−xMnx]Al, Co2Mn[Al1−xSnx] and [Fe1−xCox]2MnAl. I show that these alloys are also half-ferromagnets when the normal Heusler compounds corresponding to concentration values of zero and unity are half-metals. Moreover, the total spin moment Mt in μB scales linearly with the total number of valence electrons Zt (and thus with the concentration x) following the relation Mt = Zt−24, independently of the origin of the extra valence electrons, confirming the Slater–Pauling behaviour of the normal Heusler alloys. These results pave the way for experimentalists searching for new half-metallic alloys.

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