Atomistic Simulations of Magnetic Shape Memory Alloys;Doctoral thesis

摘要

Magnetic shape memory (MSM) alloys are novel smart materials which exhibit magnetic field induced strains of up to 10%. As such they have potential for many technological applications. Also, the strong magneto-structural couplings of the MSM effect make the phenomenon very interesting from a scientific point of view. In this thesis, materials and properties related to the MSM effect are studied with atomistic simulations. Main interest is in the known MSM alloy Ni-Mn-Ga around the Ni2-MnGa stoichiometry. One pre-requisite for the MSM effect is the existence of a structural transformation in a magnetic material, and therefore some candidate materials are investigated from this perspective.