A First-Principles Investigation of the Compositional Dependent Properties of Magnetic Shape Memory Heusler Alloys Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The interplay of structural and magnetic properties of magnetic shape memory alloys is closely related to their composition. In this study the influence of the valence electron concentration on the tetragonal transformation in Ni 2Mn 1 + xZ 1 - x (Z = Ga, In, Sn, Sb) and Co 2Ni 1 + xGa 1 - x is investigated by means of ab initio calculations. While the type of magnetic interaction is different for the two series, the trends of the total energy changes under a tetragonal transformation are very similar. We find that tetragonal structures become energetically preferred with respect to the cubic one as the valence electron concentration e/a is increased regardless of the system under consideration. In particular, the energy difference between the austenite and martensite structures increases linearly with e/a, which is in part responsible for the linear increase of the matensite transformation temperature. The substitution of nickel by platinum increases even further the transformation temperature. Copyright 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

published proceedings

  • ADVANCED ENGINEERING MATERIALS

author list (cited authors)

  • Siewert, M., Gruner, M. E., Hucht, A., Herper, H. C., Dannenberg, A., Chakrabarti, A., ... Entel, P.

citation count

  • 51

complete list of authors

  • Siewert, Mario||Gruner, Markus E||Hucht, Alfred||Herper, Heike C||Dannenberg, Antje||Chakrabarti, Aparna||Singh, Navdeep||Arroyave, Raymundo||Entel, Peter

publication date

  • August 2012

publisher