Surface half-metallicity of half-Heusler compound FeCrSe and interface half-metallicity of FeCrSe/GaP

摘要

Recent studies showed that half-Heusler FeCrSe exhibits half-metallic ferromagnetism (Huang et al. ). In this paper, we investigate extensively the electronic, magnetic, and half-metallic properties of the half-Heusler alloy FeCrSe (111) and (001) surfaces and the interface with GaP (111) substrate by using the first-principles calculations within the density functional theory. The atomic density of states demonstrates that the half-me tallicity verified in the bulk FeCrSe is maintained at the CrSe-terminated (001)and Se-terminated(111) surfaces, but lost at both Cr-and Fe-terminated (111) surfaces and the Fe-terminated (001) surface. Alternatively, for the interface of FeCrSe/GaP (111), the bulk half-metallicity is destroyed at Se-P configuration while Se-Ga interface and subinterface show nearly 100% spin polarization. Moreover, the calculated interfacial adhesion energies exhibit that Se-Ga shape is more stable than the Se-P one. The calculated magnetic moments of Se, Ga at the Se-Ga (111) interface and P at the Se-P (111) interface increase with respect to the corresponding bulk values while the atomic magnetic moment of Se atom at the Se-P (111) interface decreases. We also notice that the magnetic moments of subinterface Fe at both Se-Ga and Se-P (111) interfaces decrease compared to the bulk values.