First principles calculation of Manganese based half Heusler compounds

Abstract

The Half-Heusler compounds exhibit a diverse range of tuneable properties including half-metallic ferromagnetism topological insulator, solar cells and thermoelectric converters. We have studied four half-Heusler compounds MnFeIn, MnFeGa, MnNiAs and MnNiSb. The nature and properties of half-heusler compounds can be studied on the bases of their valance electron count. In this paper, Fe based compounds have 18 valence electrons; whereas 22 valence electrons in Ni based. The Density Functional Theory (DFT) has been performed with WIEN2k code. Ni based compounds with Mn located at octahedral sites are half-metals as revealed from the Density of States (DoS) and band structure calculations. In all of them, spin-up channels are conducting; whereas in MnNiAs and MnNiSb spin-down channels have the small band gaps. MnNiAs and MnNiSb exhibit half-metallic property with integer magnetic moments of 4 μB per formula unit and half-metallic gaps of 0.15 and 0.17 eV at their equilibrium volume respectively.