Akshata Magar | Searcharxiv

arXiv2025

Disorder mediated fully compensated ferrimagnetic spin-gapless semiconducting behaviour in Cr3Al Heusler alloy

Spin-gapless semiconductors (SGSs) that simultaneously host fully compensated ferrimagnetism are highly sought for energy-efficient and stray-field-free spintronic technologies, yet their realization in chemically disordered systems has remained elusive. Here, we demonstrate that the binary Heusler alloy Cr3Al despite adopting a fully A2-disordered structure exhibits a rare coexistence of SGS transport and a fully compensated ferrimagnetic (FCF) ground state. Single-crystalline and polycrystalline Cr3Al samples were synthesized, and comprehensive structural analyses using single crystal XRD, synchrotron powder XRD, and neutron powder diffraction reveal complete Cr/Al site mixing. Remarkably, this chemical disorder does not disrupt magnetic order; instead, magnetization, X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD), and temperature-dependent neutron diffraction establish a robust compensated ferrimagnetic state with a vanishingly small ordered moment of 0.1(1) muB/f.u and a high Curie temperature of 773(2) K. Electrical and thermal transport measurements uncover clear SGS characteristics, including weak temperature-dependent conductivity, very low Seebeck coefficients, and electron-hole compensated transport. Hall measurements show unusual temperature-dependent carrier concentrations consistent with disorder-modified electronic states. First-principles calculations on an A2-disordered SQS structure reproduce the experimentally observed negligibly small magnetization (0.0072 muB/f.u) and reveal a vanishing spin-up band gap unambiguously supporting SGS behavior driven by chemical disorder. Our results identify Cr3Al as the first experimentally verified A2-disordered Heusler alloy exhibiting both fully compensated ferrimagnetism and spin-gapless semiconducting transport, positioning it as a robust and disorder-tolerant platform for next-generation, high-temperature spintronic devices.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2023

Large magnetocaloric effect in the kagome ferromagnet Li$_9$Cr$_3$(P$_2$O$_7$)$_3$(PO$_4$)$_2$

Single-crystal growth, magnetic properties, and magnetocaloric effect of the $S = 3/2$ kagome ferromagnet Li$_9$Cr$_3$(P$_2$O$_7$)$_3$(PO$_4$)$_2$ (trigonal, space group: $P\bar{3}c1$) are reported. Magnetization data suggest dominant ferromagnetic intra-plane coupling with a weak anisotropy and the onset of ferromagnetic ordering at $T_{\rm C} \simeq 2.6$ K. Microscopic analysis reveals a very small ratio of interlayer to intralayer ferromagnetic couplings ($J_{\perp}/J \simeq 0.02$). Electron spin resonance data suggest the presence of short-range correlations above $T_{\rm C}$ and confirms quasi-two-dimensional character of the spin system. A large magnetocaloric effect characterized by isothermal entropy change of $-\Delta S_{\rm m}\simeq 31$ J kg$^{-1}$ K$^{-1}$ and adiabatic temperature change of $-\Delta T_{\rm ad}\simeq 9$ K upon a field sweep of 7 T is observed around $T_{\rm C}$. This leads to a large relative cooling power of $RCP \simeq 284$ J kg$^{-1}$. The large magnetocaloric effect, together with negligible hysteresis render Li$_9$Cr$_3$(P$_2$O$_7$)$_3$(PO$_4$)$_2$ a promising material for magnetic refrigeration at low temperatures. The magnetocrystalline anisotropy constant $K \simeq -7.42 \times 10^4$ erg cm$^{-3}$ implies that the compound is an easy-plane type ferromagnet with the hard axis normal to the $ab$-plane, consistent with the magnetization data.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗