Iron-Based Heusler Compounds Fe2y Z: Comparison With Theoretical Predictions Of The Crystal Structure And Magnetic Properties

The present work reports on the new soft ferromagnetic Heusler phases Fe2NiGe, Fe2CuGa, and Fe2CuAl, which in previous theoretical studies have been predicted to exist in a tetragonal Heusler structure. Together with the known phases Fe2CoGe and Fe2NiGa these materials have been synthesized and characterized by powder x-ray diffraction, Fe-57 Mossbauer spectroscopy, superconducting quantum interference device, and energy-dispersive x-ray measurements. In particular Mossbauer spectroscopy was used to monitor the degree of local atomic order/disorder and to estimate magnetic moments at the Fe sites from the hyperfine fields. It is shown that in contrast to the previous predictions all the materials except Fe2NiGa basically adopt the inverse cubic Heusler (X) structure with differing degrees of disorder. The experimental data are compared with results from ab initio electronic structure calculations on local-density approximation level incorporating the effects of atomic disorder by using the coherent potential approximation. A good agreement between calculated and experimental magnetic moments is found for the cubic inverse Heusler phases. Model calculations on various atomic configurations demonstrate that antisite disorder tends to enhance the stability of the X structure. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.87.064411