JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS 103, 073911 共2008兲 Magnetism and structural ordering on a bcc lattice for highly magnetostrictive Fe–Ga alloys: A coherent potential approximation study T. Khmelevska, S. Khmelevskyi,a兲 and P. Mohn Center for Computational Material Science, Vienna University of Technology, Getreidemarkt 9/134 Vienna, Austria 共Received 21 November 2007; accepted 23 January 2008; published online 7 April 2008兲 We calculate the electronic structure, magnetic moments, and ordering energies of highly magnetostrictive Fe1−xGax alloys from first-principles in the composition range up to x = 0.25. The coherent potential approximation was used to treat effects of chemical disorder. Given an underlying bcc lattice in whole range compositions investigated, the DO3 type of ordering is found to have a lower energy than A2- and B2-type structures. We find that ordering energies strongly depend on the state of magnetic order such that thermal magnetic disorder strongly favors chemical ordering 共DO3 and B2兲. The values of the magnetic moments of Fe on different sublattices of ordered structures are found to have a distinctive dependency on the Ga concentration. By taking into account the results of earlier fully relativistic and full potential calculations of magnetostriction for ordered stoichiometric Fe3Ga compounds and available experimental phenomenology, our results for disordered alloys suggest an eventually more complex origin of the giant magnetostriction in Fe–Ga alloys than it would appear from a simple electronic structure analysis of ordered stoichiometric compounds. © 2008 American Institute of Physics. 关DOI: 10.1063/1.2903071兴 I. INTRODUCTION Until very recently, the magnetic properties of Fe–Ga alloys have attracted much less experimental and theoretical interest compared to their Fe–Al or Fe–Si counterparts, which have been thoroughly studied due to both their fundamental and application challenges.1 The situation dramatically changed after the discovery of a huge increase of the magnetostriction upon Ga doping compared to its value in pure bcc Fe,2,3 making these alloys to become promising materials for applications in sensor and actuator technology.4 Intensive studies of the structural5 and magnetic6–11 properties of bcc Fe–Ga alloys have been carried during recent years by various groups, including also Mössbauer spectroscopy12,13 and neutron diffraction studies.14,15 It has been found that the size of the magnetostriction in Fe–Ga is very sensitive to the thermal treatment or to the state of the chemical ordering in these alloys.8,10,16 However, the origin of the anomalously large magnetostriction value 100 and its relation to chemical ordering on the underlying bcc lattice are still under debate. In the region of Fe rich compositions in Fe1−xGax alloys, two long-range ordered phases, B2 and DO3, on a bcc lattice and a fully chemically disordered A2 phase are observed.5 These types of long-range ordering are presented in Fig. 1 where it can be seen that B2 corresponds to a Ga ordering on the second nearest neighbor 共NN兲 sites of a bcc lattice, whereas DO3 is ordering on the third NN sites. This, in particular, illustrates the fact that interatomic interactions favoring B2 order indeed favor directional 具100典 short-range ordering of Ga in Ga–Ga pairs. It has been suggested3 that these short-range directional ordering of Ga atoms leads to a Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: ⫹43 1 58801 15838. Electronic mail: [email protected]. a兲 0021-8979/2008/103共7兲/073911/5/$23.00 huge increase in the magnetostriction and the observed strong elastic softening in these alloys.17 Strong additional arguments toward this hypothesis were further added by Dunlop et al.12 and Lograsso et al.18 Recently, another point of view was advocated by Khachaturyan and Viehland,19 who suggested that the increase in the magnetostriction is a nonsingle domain property, being a rather extrinsic phenomenon coming from DO3 precipitates in the A2 matrix. These DO3 precipitates are tetragonally distorted and the domains of the resulting face-centered tetragonal phase may be reoriented in an external field leading to a large pseudoelastic strain and consequently to the large value of the magnetostriction. Indeed, the mixture of the DO3 + A2 phases is the most stable in the metastable bcc region of the Fe–Ga phase diagram5 where the maximum magnetostriction is detected.18 It is interesting that the observed Ga concentration dependence of the magnetostriction and the thermal treatment of the samples can be accounted for in both phenomenological models mentioned above. Up to now, first-principles investigations have only been performed for the ordered alloys. By employing the full potential linearized augmented plane wave and his torque technique, Wu20 calculated the magnetostrictive coefficients 100 FIG. 1. 共Color online兲 Three types of ordering on a bcc sublattice. For the DO3 structure, only part of the unit cell is shown. The dotted lines are the unit vectors of the primitive fcc cell of DO3. 103, 073911-1 © 2008 American Institute of Physics Downloaded 13 Jun 2008 to 128.130.131.2. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://jap.aip.org/jap/copyright.jsp 073911-2 Khmelevska, Khmelevskyi, and Mohn in stoichiometrically ordered Fe3Ga compounds in the DO3 and L60 structure. The “B2-like” L60 structure has been used21 to model disordered B2 ordering in Fe3Ga. These calculations predicted a large value of 100 only for the L60 structure, whereas the calculated value for DO3 was found to be small and even having opposite sign20 as compared to experiment. This observation supports the “intrinsic” model based on 具100典 Ga–Ga short-range ordering since L60 has 具100典 ordered chains of Ga atoms. Recent measurements10 performed on Fe3Ga samples in the A2, B2, and DO3 phases suggested that the disordered A2 phase has the largest magnetostriction coefficient and DO3 has the smallest. However, Fe3Ga with DO3 structure has a positive and, although three times smaller than for the corresponding A2 type, a still very high value of 100 compared to bcc Fe. In addition, in the calculations the L60 structure has been found to be elastically unstable. We find it important that in this paper the qualitative explanation of the origin of the enhanced magnetostriction was based on an analysis of the calculated density of states 共DOS兲. It was noticed that the increase in the magnetoelastic coupling occurs due to a splitting of the d-states in the minority spin band near the Fermi level caused by the low symmetry of some Fe sites in the B2-like structure. Since in ordered Fe3Ga the symmetry remains high, the magnetostriction value becomes low. Very recently, the elastic constants in some Fe rich Fe1−xGax compounds with x ⬍ 0.25 have been calculated for several ordered supercell configurations and the experimentally observed softness of the tetragonal shear modulus has been reproduced.22 In the calculations mentioned above, the effects of chemical disorder on the electronic structure were not taken into account. In this paper, we perform coherent potential approximation 共CPA兲 studies from first principles. We calculate the electronic structure, ordering energies, and magnetic properties and their dependence on the Ga concentration in Fe1−xGax alloys, with x = 0.0– 0.25. In the framework of the CPA, the chemical disorder is taken into account a in meanfield-like manner.23 Several CPA studies for disorder effects on the electronic structure have been carried out for similar Fe–Si alloys, showing a strong interplay between magnetism and atomic order24–26 but, up to our best knowledge, never for Fe–Ga. Our study is organized as follows: After a description of the method of calculation, in Sec. III, we investigate the relative stability of three ordered structures of Fe–Ga alloys on a bcc lattice 共Fig. 1兲. In Sec. III, we present the calculated DOS and give a semiqualitative discussion of the huge magnetostriction based on the models described during the introduction. It is shown that a more detailed explanation of the giant magnetostriction and its concentration dependence in Fe–Ga alloys would need to go beyond a simple Néel-like hypothesis by taking into the account local environment effects more thoroughly. II. METHOD OF CALCULATION The calculation of electronic structure and total energies has been performed in the framework of the local spin density approximations 共LSDAs兲.27 We employ the bulk Korringa–Kohn–Rostoker 共KKR兲 method in the atomic J. Appl. Phys. 103, 073911 共2008兲 FIG. 2. Calculated ordering energies for ferromagnetic 共open symbols兲 and disordered local moment state 共closed symbols兲. The energies are given per atom and relative to the A2 state with corresponding magnetic order. sphere approximation28,29 共ASA兲 to calculate the electronic band structure. The partial waves in the KKR-ASA calculations have been expanded up to lmax = 3 inside the atomic spheres. The total energy was calculated using multipole screening electrostatic corrections to the electrostatic potential and energy 共up to l = 6兲, as described in Ref. 30. All calculations were performed within the scalar relativistic approximation, which contains all relativistic effects with the exception of spin-orbit coupling. The calculations where converged with uniform 29⫻ 29⫻ 29 mesh of k-points in the cubic A2, fcc B2, and bcc DO3 first Brillouin zone, providing an energy convergence better than 0.01 mRy/atom. A singlesite CPA was used for the description of substitutional atomic disorder. In Sec. III, the paramagnetic state above the magnetic ordering temperature has been conventionally modeled by the disordered local moments 共DLM兲 state, as described by Györrfy et al.31 The total energies of all structures are compared to the LSDA equilibrium lattice constants calculated for any structure and alloy composition considered. III. CHEMICAL ORDERING AND MAGNETISM ON FE SUBLATTICES According to the latest experimental ambient temperature equilibrium phase diagram5 of the Fe–Ga alloy, the DO3 phase becomes stable as the Ga concentration increases, whereas the B2 phase appears only as a high-temperature phase at elevated Ga concentrations. The calculated CPA ground state energies show the relative phase stabilities at zero temperature. They are presented in Fig. 2 共open symbols兲, where energy is given per atom and is being measured with respect to the fully disordered A2 structure. In agreement with experimental estimates, the DO3 structure has the lowest energy for all Ga concentrations. The energy differences are somewhat smaller than the respective values calculated for Fe–Si alloys.32 However, these differences in ordering energies calculated for the paramagnetic state with disordered local moments 共black symbols, Fig. 2兲 are about two times smaller than respective differences in Fe–Si. It thus appears that thermal magnetic disorder strongly favors chemical order. Moreover, one notices a significant increase in the stability of the B2 phase. The combination of these Downloaded 13 Jun 2008 to 128.130.131.2. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://jap.aip.org/jap/copyright.jsp 073911-3 Khmelevska, Khmelevskyi, and Mohn FIG. 3. Calculated magnetic moments in the ferromagnetic state for the A2, B2, and DO3 structure. Upper panel: average moment per Fe atom and lower panel: local atomic moments on different Fe sublattices. factors may be the reason why the variation of the heat treatment above the magnetic ordering temperature allows producing a sample with different chemical order at low temperatures relatively more easy in Fe–Ga than in Fe–Si. For example, the magnetostriction in Fe3Ga has been investigated for all three types of ordering.10 The values of the magnetic moments of the Fe atoms on different sublattices show a different dependence on the Ga concentration 共see Fig. 3 where the calculated moments are shown兲. The dependence of the average value of the Fe moments, however, has one interesting feature common for all three ordering types 共upper panel of Fig. 3兲. The average Fe moment reaches its maximal value at some intermediate Ga concentrations, namely, at ⬃10 at. % Ga for DO3 ordering, at ⬃12 at. % Ga for B2, and at ⬃15– 17 at. % Ga for disordered A2. It is interesting that the latter value approximately coincides with the maximum of the magnetostriction experimentally observed in quenched Fe–Ga single crystals,18 whereas disordered A2 Fe3Ga has the largest magnetostriction compared to the ordered samples.10 The existence of maximum in the concentration dependence of the average Fe moment has been also observed in recent Mössbauer spectrometry studies,13 although shifted toward lower concentrations compare to our calculated one. Currently, we cannot provide any logical link between the peculiar dependence of the Fe moment value on the alloy composition and the observed phenomena of giant magnetostriction in these alloys. However, some additional remarks J. Appl. Phys. 103, 073911 共2008兲 can be made. As it was described in some length in the Introduction, one of the common explanations of giant magnetostriction as intrinsic property of a single crystal phase is the strong dependence on the oriented Ga–Ga pair ordering. In the original paper by Neel,33 a similar ordering is suggested to be responsible for the strong magnetic softening in Fe–Si alloys. An essential magnetic softening also occurs in Fe–Ga alloys and is believed to have the same kind of reason.34 The Fe–Si alloys, however, in contrast to Fe–Ga, are not giant magnetostrictive and at the same time they are exhibiting a monotonous decreasing of the average Fe moments with Si concentration.26 We thus may speculate that the understanding of this difference in the Fe moment behavior in Fe–Ga and Fe–Si 共also Fe–Ge or Sn兲 can be key for understanding of the onset of giant magnetostriction in Fe– Ga. Let us now turn to the behavior of the calculated Fe moments on different sublattices in the ordered alloys 共lower panel of Fig. 3兲. At low Ga concentrations, the moments on all sublattices grow; then, at about 10 at. % Ga, the values of the moments on one sublattice in B2 and DO3 start to decrease—these are those sublattices that have the largest number of Ga neighbors 共see Fig. 1兲. Such maximum occurs in the disordered A2 structure at higher Ga concentrations since the number of NN Ga atoms increases more slowly than on the corresponding sublattices in ordered structures. There is a combination of two effects on these sublattices—a tendency of moment increase due to the lattice expansion caused by the Ga substitution and a chemical tendency to reduce the value of the moment due to p-d bond formations. A more detailed discussion on the mechanisms of magnetic moment formation on Fe sublattices can be found in Ref. 25. We would like to mention here that in Fe–Si, the Fe moments on sublattices, which have no Si neighbors, increase with the Si concentration26 compared to our calculated moments in Fe–Ga. However, the moments on the other sublattices monotonously decrease upon alloying starting immediately from the diluted regime in Fe–Si. IV. ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE In this section, we analyze some features of the DOS in Fe–Ga alloys with different chemical orderings which has previously been claimed20 to be important for the appearance a strong magnetoelastic coupling in Fe–Ga. Relativistic calculations by Wu20 performed for ordered Fe3Ga compounds with DO3 and L60 structures have shown that only in the latter structure large magnetostrictive effects of proper sign occur. Its appearance has been linked to the symmetry splitting of a single peak in the spin-down band near the Fermi level into two peaks for Fe sites belonging to the sublattice neighboring to the Ga one. Such a splitting was found to be absent DO3. This transparent result has added a much insight to the phenomenological explanation of giant magnetostriction based on the Ga 具100典 pair ordering since the L60 structure is composed of crystallographic lines with such Ga–Ga pairs. However, the L60 structure may be considered only as a rough approximate model of the B2 order even in Fe3Ga. The reason is that the real B2 structure has an essential dis- Downloaded 13 Jun 2008 to 128.130.131.2. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://jap.aip.org/jap/copyright.jsp 073911-4 Khmelevska, Khmelevskyi, and Mohn FIG. 4. The calculated atom-projected and symmetry projected DOSs for Fe0.9Ga0.1. Only the DOS of the d-states is shown: full line, t2g and dotted line eg. order on the Ga sublattice: each site of which are populated by Ga and Fe atoms with equal probability in Fe3Ga. One can even wonder in this respect why L60 should be considered as a better model for B2 then DO3. Thus, our goal here is to trace an evolution of the spin-down band splitting in realistic disordered Fe–Ga alloys. Then, by taken as an established fact, Wu’s observation that the giant magnetostric- J. Appl. Phys. 103, 073911 共2008兲 FIG. 5. The calculated atom-projected and symmetry projected DOSs for Fe3Ga. Only the DOS of the d-states is shown: full line, t2g and dotted line, e g. tion is a consequence of the presence of atoms with such splitting in their spin-down DOS, one can hope to arrive to certain further conclusions concerning the magnetostriction effect in realistic partially ordered alloys. In Fig. 4, we show the calculated atom-projected DOS of Downloaded 13 Jun 2008 to 128.130.131.2. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://jap.aip.org/jap/copyright.jsp 073911-5 J. Appl. Phys. 103, 073911 共2008兲 Khmelevska, Khmelevskyi, and Mohn the d-states of Fe for the alloy Fe0.9Ga0.1. The d-DOS is divided into states with t2g and eg symmetries. There occur no special features in the A2 DOS 共upper panel兲 and it is very similar to that of bcc Fe, except for a disorder induced smoothing due to the CPA averaging. A similar DOS is found for Fe on sites, which have no Ga neighbors such as Fe1 in B2 共second panel in Fig. 4兲 or Fe1 and Fe2 sites in DO3 共not shown兲 in the first NN atomic shell 共see also Fig. 1兲. The nontrivial changes in the DOS occur on Fe sites, which are neighboring to the sublattice populated by Ga atoms. The additional peak appears in the spin-down t2g manifold exactly near the Fermi level 共marked by arrows, see two lower panels in Fig. 4兲. A further splitting of this peak is exactly the reason for large magnetoelastic coupling according to Wu’s model for the L60 structure. An interesting result is that CPA does not predict any such splitting for the alloys considered. Moreover, such a splitting does also not appear in the Fe3Ga composition 共see Fig. 5兲. The point is that this splitting is not an averaged property of the particular chemical ordering, but rather a local environment effect and a result of the lowering of the local symmetry around the Fe atom. It is not quite clear, however, how this symmetry lowering should be caused entirely by the existence of 具100典 Ga–Ga pair ordering. One can imagine that a similar splitting on Fe can also be induced by other configurations of surrounding Ga atoms. In order to fully investigate the situation, one needs to go beyond the CPA and take into the account local environment effects, for example, using the local self-consistent Green’s function technique35 for disordered alloys. For example, by looking at the DOS calculated for selected large supercells for Fe–Ga in Ref. 22, one can see very peculiar DOS features at the Fermi level for some Fe positions. One can thus conclude that before a careful study of local environment effects in realistic disordered alloys would be done, there is no reason to connect the appearance of huge magnetostriction to the development of the 具100典 directional ordering. Indeed, the experimental results of Kumagai et al.,10 who found the largest magnetostriction in the fully disordered A2 Fe3Ga alloy and not in the B2 phase, are also pointing into this direction. V. CONCLUSION From our investigation, we can conclude that on the average the splitting of the d-states which, according to Wu’s first-principles model, leads to the giant magnetostriction in Fe–Ga does not occur in realistic disordered alloys. Thus, it is not a direct consequence of the particular long-range chemical ordering, but rather a local symmetry effect. If there is a way to explain the giant magnetostriction in Fe–Ga alloys in any kind of an intrinsic model, i.e., based on the electronic properties of a single domain crystal, in particular, using Wu’s model, it is not necessarily based on the assumption of the 具100典 directional ordering. A crucial assessment could be done only with the application of methods beyond CPA to study realistic disordered alloys and a consequent statistical analysis. We also find that in Fe–Ga alloys, there is a strong interplay between thermal magnetic and chemical order. It is more pronounced than in the well-investigated Fe–Si alloys. It is found that the magnetic disorder strongly favors a particular chemical order. The latter may deserve further experimental and theoretical attention, also concerning an eventual peculiar dependence of the chemical ordering on a combined magnetic and thermal treatment. 1 G. Bertotti, A. R. Ferchmin, E. Fiorillo, K. Fukamichi, K. Kobe, and S. Roth, Magnetic Alloys for Technical Applications. Soft Magnetic Alloys, Invar and Elinvar Alloys, Landolt-Börnstein, New Series, Group III, Vol. 19i1 共Springer, Berlin, 1994兲, pp. 33–143. 2 A. E. Clark, J. B. Restorff, M. Wun-Fogle, T. A. Lograsso, and D. L. Schlagel, IEEE Trans. Magn. 36, 3238 共2000兲. 3 J. R. Cullen, A. E. Clark, M. Wun-Fogle, J. B. Restorff, and T. A. Lograsso, J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 226–230, 948 共2001兲. 4 S. Guruswany, N. Srisukhumbowarnchai, A. E. Clark, J. B. Restorff, and M. Wun-Fogle, Scr. Mater. 43, 239 共2000兲. 5 O. Ikeda, R. Kainuma, I. Ohnuma, K. Fukamichi, and K. Ishida, J. Alloys Compd. 347, 198 共2002兲. 6 C. Bormio-Nunes, M. A. Tirelli, R. Sato Turtelli, R. Grössinger, H. Müller, G. Wiesenger, H. Sassik, and M. Reissner, J. Appl. Phys. 97, 033901 共2005兲. 7 N. Srisukhumbowarnchai and S. Guruswany, J. Appl. Phys. 90, 5680 共2001兲. 8 A. E. Clark, K. B. Hathaway, M. Wun-Fogle, J. B. Restorff, T. A. Lograsso, V. M. Keppens, G. Petculescu, and R. A. Teylor, J. Appl. Phys. 93, 8621 共2003兲. 9 M. Ishimoto, H. Nakamura, and M. Wuttig, Mater. Sci. Eng., A 442, 195 共2006兲. 10 A. Kumagai, A. Fujita, K. Fukamichi, K. Oikawa, R. Kainuma, and K. Ishida, J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 272–276, 2060 共2004兲. 11 M. C. Zhang, H. L. Jiang, X. X. Gao, J. Zhu, and S. Z. Zhou, J. Appl. Phys. 99, 023903 共2006兲. 12 R. A. Dunlap, J. D. McGraw, and S. P. Farell, J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 315–320, 305 共2006兲. 13 J. M. Borrego, J. S. Blazquez, C. F. Conde, A. Conde, and S. Roth, Intermetallics 15, 193 共2007兲. 14 J. L. Zarestky, V. O. Garlea, T. A. Lograsso, D. L. Schlagel, and C. Stassis, Phys. Rev. B 72, 180408共R兲 共2005兲. 15 J. L. Zarestky, O. Moze, J. W. Lynn, Y. Chen, T. A. Lograsso, and D. L. Schlagel, Phys. Rev. B 75, 052406 共2007兲. 16 T. A. Lograsso and E. M. Summers, Mater. Sci. Eng., A 416, 240 共2006兲. 17 M. Wuttig, L. Dai, and J. Cullen, Appl. Phys. Lett. 80, 1135 共2002兲. 18 T. Lograsso, A. R. Ross, D. L. Schlagel, A. E. Clark, and M. Wun-Fogle, J. Alloys Compd. 350, 95 共2003兲. 19 A. G. Khachaturyan and D. Viehland, Metall. Mater. Trans. A 38, 2308 共2007兲. 20 R. Wu, J. Appl. Phys. 91, 7358 共2002兲. 21 R. Wu, Z. Yang, and J. Hong, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 15, S587 共2003兲. 22 K. Chen and L. M. Cheng, Phys. Status Solidi B 244, 3583 共2007兲. 23 I. Turek, V. Drchal, J. Kudrnovský, M. Šob, and P. Weinberger, Electronic Structure of Disordered Alloys, Surfaces and Interfaces 共Kluwer Academic, Boston, 1997兲. 24 J. Kudrnovský, N. E. Christensen, and O. K. Andersen, Phys. Rev. B 43, 5924 共1991兲. 25 N. I. Kulikov, D. Fristot, J. Hugel, and A. V. Postnikov, Phys. Rev. B 66, 014206 共2002兲. 26 T. Khmelevska, S. Khmelevskyi, A. V. Ruban, and P. Mohn, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 18, 6677 共2006兲. 27 J. Perdew and Y. Wang, Phys. Rev. B 45, 13244 共1992兲. 28 I. A. Abrikosov and H. L. Skriver, Phys. Rev. B 47, 16532 共1993兲. 29 A. V. Ruban and H. L. Skriver, Comput. Mater. Sci. 15, 199 共1999兲. 30 A. V. Ruban, S. I. Simak, P. A. Korzhavyi, and H. L. Skriver, Phys. Rev. B 66, 024202 共2002兲. 31 B. L. Gyorffy, A. J. Pindor, J. Staunton, G. M. Stocks, and H. Winter, J. Phys. F: Met. Phys. 15, 1337 共1985兲. 32 T. Khmelevska, S. Khmelevskyi, and P. Mohn 共to be published兲. 33 L. Neel, J. Phys. Radium 15, 225 共1954兲. 34 J. Cullen, P. Zhao, and M. Wuttig, J. Appl. Phys. 101, 123922 共2007兲. 35 I. A. Abrikosov, S. I. Simak, B. Johansson, A. V. Ruban, and L. Skriver, Phys. Rev. B 56, 9319 共1997兲. Downloaded 13 Jun 2008 to 128.130.131.2. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://jap.aip.org/jap/copyright.jsp
© Copyright 2026 Paperzz