IrCrMnZ (Z=Al, Ga, Si, Ge) Heusler alloys as electrode materials for MgO-based magnetic tunneling junctions: A first-principles study

TL;DR

This study uses first-principles calculations to evaluate IrCrMnZ Heusler alloys as electrode materials for MgO-based magnetic tunnel junctions, highlighting their high spin polarization, stability, and potential for high-temperature applications.

Contribution

It introduces IrCrMnZ alloys as promising electrode materials for MTJs, demonstrating their electronic properties and stability through first-principles analysis.

Findings

IrCrMnAl and IrCrMnGa have Curie temperatures above 1300 K.

These alloys maintain half-metallicity at the MgO interface.

They exhibit large majority-spin conductance in MTJ configurations.

Abstract

We study IrCrMnZ (Z=Al, Ga, Si, Ge) systems using first-principles calculations from the perspective of their application as the electrode materials of MgO-based MTJs. These materials have highly spin-polarized conduction electrons with partially occupied $\Delta_1$ band, which is important for coherent tunneling in parallel magnetization configuration. The Curie temperatures of IrCrMnAl and IrCrMnGa are very high (above 1300 K) as predicted from mean-field-approximation. The stability of ordered phase against various antisite disorders has been investigated. We discuss here the effect of "spin-orbit-coupling" on the electronic structure around Fermi level. Further, we investigate the electronic structure of IrCrMnZ/MgO heterojunction along (001) direction. IrCrMnAl/MgO and IrCrMnGa/MgO maintain half-metallicity even at the MgO interface, with no interfacial states at/around Fermi level in the minority-spin channel. Large majority-spin conductance of IrCrMnAl/MgO/IrCrMnAl and IrCrMnGa/MgO/IrCrMnGa is reported from the calculation of ballistic spin-transport property for parallel magnetization configuration. We propose IrCrMnAl/MgO/IrCrMnAl and IrCrMnGa/MgO/IrCrMnGa as promising MTJs with a weaker temperature dependence of tunneling magnetoresistance ratio, owing to their very high Curie temperatures.