Cubic MnSb: epitaxial growth of a predicted room temperature half-metal

TL;DR

This paper reports the epitaxial growth of cubic MnSb films and predicts their potential as room temperature half-metals suitable for spin injection, based on theoretical and experimental analysis.

Contribution

It demonstrates the successful epitaxial growth of cubic MnSb and predicts its high-temperature half-metallicity, a novel finding for spintronic applications.

Findings

Epitaxial cubic MnSb films were successfully grown on GaAs.

Theoretical predictions indicate cubic MnSb retains half-metallicity above 350K.

Cubic MnSb is a promising candidate for room temperature spintronics.

Abstract

Epitaxial films including bulk-like cubic and wurtzite polymorphs of MnSb have been grown by molecular beam epitaxy on GaAs via careful control of the Sb4/Mn flux ratio. Nonzero-temperature density functional theory was used to predict ab initio the spin polarization as a function of reduced magnetization for the half-metals NiMnSb and cubic MnSb. In both cases, half-metallicity is lost at a threshold magnetization reduction, corresponding to a temperature T*< Tc. This threshold is far higher for cubic MnSb compared to NiMnSb and corresponds to T* > 350K, making epitaxial cubic MnSb a promising candidate for room temperature spin injection into semiconductors.