Between intermetallic Compounds and Alloys Heusler Compounds

With more than 1000 known members, Heusler materials form a large group of intermetallic compounds. Despite their relatively simple cubic crystal structure, they exhibit an enormous variety of physical effects. The reason is not only their large number but also the possibility to tune them by substitution and heat treatment. Moreover, many of the properties of a Heusler compound, such as semiconductivity or the magnetic moment, can be predicted by simply counting the valence electrons. While the application as thermoelectrics and in spintronics mainly been explored in the past decades, the topological properties of Heusler compounds have recently attracted a lot of interest.