Modeling of full-Heusler alloys within tight-binding approximation: Case study of Fe2MnAl

Heusler alloys have been known for about a century, and predictions of magnetic moment values using Slater-Pauling rule have been successful for many such materials. However, such a simple counting rule has been found not to always work for all Heusler alloys. For instance, Fe2CuAl has been found to have magnetic moment of 3.30 µB per formula unit although the Slater-Pauling rule suggests the value of 2 µB. On the other hand, a recent experiment shows that a non-stoichiometric Heusler compound Fe2Mn0.5Cu0.5Al possesses magnetic moment of ~4 µB, closer to the Slater-Pauling prediction for the stoichiometric compound. Such discrepancies signify that the theory to predict the magnetic moment of Heusler alloys in general is still far from being complete. Motivated by this issue, we propose to do a theoretical study on a full-Heusler alloy Fe2MnAl to understand the formation of magnetic moment microscopically. We model the system by constructing a density-functional-theory-based tight-binding Hamiltonian and i...