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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1
INTRODUCTION
1.2
SPINTRONICS
1.2.1
Spintronic Devices
Spintronics
based
devices
offer
several
advantages
over
1)
2)
Semiconductor
advantages
of
based
spintronic
semiconductor
devices
with
the
combine
the
concept
of
3)
spin
injection
into
nonmagnetic
materials
and
large
DMS
is
obtained
by
doping
conventional
compound
1.3
i)
Figure 1.1
compared
to
normal
metal
and
semiconductor
n EF
n EF
n EF
n EF
(1.1)
ii)
Zt
(1.2)
Mt
(N
N )
(1.3)
Mt
(Zt
2N )
(1.4)
This is the general expression for total magnetic moment. For the
half-metallic full-Heusler compounds/(half-Heusler), it is shown that the four
10
atoms/(three atoms) in the unit cell have a constant number of 12/(9) spin
minority electrons. The magnetization depends linearly on the number of
valence electrons. Therefore, for full-Heusler alloys, the total magnetic
moment is expressed as, Mt = (Zt
Mt = (Zt
18)
24)
B.
8)
B,
1.3.1
1.3.1.1
11
In the last one decade, much attention has been paid to the
transition metal pnictides and chalcogenides with zinc blende (ZB) structures
due to their compatible lattice structure with conventional semiconductors. It
has already been predicted theoretically that the ZB CrAs (Galanakis 2002),
ZB CrTe (Liu et al 2010), and ZB MnBi (Xu et al 2002) are HMFs with
finite HM gaps. These binary compounds do not exist in nature but the
non-equilibrium growth by molecular beam epitaxial method (MBE) has
facilitated the creation of these compounds. Akinaga et al (2000) have grown
thin films of CrAs on GaAs substrates by MBE and found that CrAs is
ferromagnet with a Curie temperature (TC) higher than 400 K.
Among the above mentioned HMF materials, Heusler alloys
remains an attractive for technological applications, because they exhibit
much higher ferromagnetic TC than other HM materials (Webster & Ziebeck
1988). Also, another property of these materials which is useful for industrial
applications
is
their
crystal
structure
and
lattice
matching
with
12
13
been reported and the measured TCs are found to range between 500 K and
730 K (Webster & Ziebeck 2001).
1.3.1.2
14
B/f.u.
and
are
alkaline
earth
metals
to
be
HMFs
by
Geshi
or 4
or 2
(Galanakis &
of ZB-HM sp
The
explanation
for
the
presence
of
non-vanishing
15
16
1.4
(i)
they have a small spin magnetic moment per formula unit and
thus create small external magnetic fields,
17
B/f.u.
and 1.0
B/f.u.
respectively. These
18
1.4.1
There are two kinds of Heusler alloys: the full-Heusler alloy and
the half-Heusler alloy. The first study on Heusler alloy was materialized with
the full-Heusler alloy symbolized by the formula X2YZ. The X2YZ Heusler
compounds are ternary intermetallics with a 2:1:1 stoichiometry. These
compounds crystallize in the cubic structure (Fm3m, space group no. 225)
with Cu2MnAl (L21) as prototype and the crystal structure shown in
Figure 1.2. The unit cell consists of four interpenetrating face centred cubic
(fcc) sublattices with the Wyckoff positions (1/4, 1/4, 1/4) for X1, (3/4, 3/4,
3/4) for X2, (0, 0, 0) for Y and (1/2, 1/2, 1/2) for Z atoms respectively.
The
Half-Heusler
compounds
(XYZ)
crystallize
in
19
Figure 1.3
20
1.5
21