Cubic Mn2Ga thin films: crossing the spin gap with ruthenium.
Cubic Mn2Ga films with the half-Heusler C1b structure are grown on V (001) epitaxial films. The phase is a soft ferrimagnet, with Curie temperature TC = 225 K and magnetization Ms=280  kA m(-1), equivalent to 1.65μB per formula. Adding ruthenium leads to an increase of TC up to 550 K in cubic Mn2Ru(x)Ga films with x = 0.33 and a collapse of the net magnetization. The anomalous Hall effect changes sign at x = 0.5, where the sign of the magnetization changes and the magnetic easy direction flips from in plane to perpendicular to the film. The Mn2Ru0.5Ga compound with a valence electron count of 21 is identified as a zero-moment ferrimagnet with high spin polarization, which shows evidence of half-metallicity.
School of Physics and CRANN, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
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Kurt
School of Physics and CRANN, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
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Rode
School of Physics and CRANN, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
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Stamenov
School of Physics and CRANN, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
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Venkatesan
School of Physics and CRANN, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
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Lau
Synchrotron SOLEIL, L'Orme des Merisiers, Saint-Aubin, BP48, 91192 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France.
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Fonda
School of Physics and CRANN, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
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Coey