Structural, magnetic and electron-transport properties of Ti₂MnAl Heusler alloys

Magnetic materials with a high degree of spin polarization have attracted much attention due to their potential applications in spin-transport-based devices. In addition, room-temperature half-metals with a small or no magnetic moments are beneficial for nanoelectronic devices due to the absence of stray magnetic field, which otherwise interferes with the neighboring magnetic elements. We have synthesized one such predicted half-metallic alloy Ti₂MnAl in cubic Heusler structure with B2-type disorder using arc-melting and annealing. The samples show very small magnetic moment with the Curie temperature of about 305 K. In this presentation, we will also discuss the electron-transport properties of the synthesized alloys and a theoretical investigation on the effect of disorder in the magnetic properties of Ti₂MnAl.