First-principles characterization of ferromagnetic Mn5Ge3 for spintronic applications

TL;DR

This paper uses first-principles calculations to analyze Mn5Ge3's electronic and magnetic properties, demonstrating its potential for spintronic applications due to high spin-injection efficiency.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive first-principles study of Mn5Ge3's electronic, magnetic, and magneto-optical properties, highlighting its suitability for spintronic devices.

Findings

Good agreement with experimental magnetic data

High predicted spin-injection efficiency along the c-axis

Magneto-optical properties characterized for future comparison

Abstract

In the active search for potentially promising candidates for spintronic applications, we focus on the intermetallic ferromagnetic Mn5Ge3 compound and perform accurate first-principles FLAPW calculations within density functional theory. Through a careful investigation of the bulk electronic and magnetic structure, our results for the total magnetization, atomic magnetic moments, metallic conducting character and hyperfine fields are found to be in good agreement with experiments, and are elucidated in terms of a hybridization mechanism and exchange interaction. In order to assess the potential of this compound for spin-injection purposes, we calculate Fermi velocities and degree of spin-polarization; our results predict a rather high spin-injection efficiency in the diffusive regime along the hexagonal c-axis. Magneto-optical properties, such as L_2,3 X-ray magnetic circular dichroism, are also reported and await comparison with experimental data.