Exchange splitting as a descriptor for giant anomalous Hall and Nernst effects in ferromagnets

Abstract

The anomalous Hall effect (AHE) and anomalous Nernst effect (ANE), which describe transverse electrical and thermoelectric responses in magnetic materials, respectively, are promising for spintronic and energy-harvesting applications. Here, we employ high-throughput first-principles calculations to investigate 2251 chemically substituted tetragonal $L1_0$ alloys. Among ferromagnets, enhanced responses emerge preferentially in alloys derived from parent compounds with small exchange splitting: no alloy derived from FePt, the archetypal $L1_0$ ferromagnet, reaches the high-response regime, whereas NiPt- and CoIr-derived alloys occupy it in large numbers. Small exchange splitting keeps majority- and minority-spin bands near the Fermi level, giving chemical substitution more opportunity to modify near-Fermi-level band crossings and amplify the Berry curvature. We predict a giant anomalous Hall conductivity of $2809\,\mathrm{S\,cm^{-1}}$ in (Co$_{0.8}$Fe$_{0.2}$)(Ir$_{0.7}$Pt$_{0.3}$) and a giant anomalous Nernst conductivity of $7.72\,\mathrm{A\,m^{-1}\,K^{-1}}$ in (Ni$_{0.8}$Co$_{0.2}$)(Pt$_{0.7}$Ir$_{0.3}$). Our results identify the exchange splitting of the parent compound as a descriptor for chemical tunability toward giant Berry-curvature-driven transport responses.