Ab Initio Study of Half-Heusler Compounds MnVZ (Z = P, As, Sb)

Abstract

Ab initio study of the half-Heusler compounds MnVZ (Z = P, As, Sb) is performed in the framework of Density Functional Theory (DFT). We have investigated their structural, elastic, mechanical, electronic, magnetic, and optical properties using the full potential linearly augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method. The compounds have stable structure with lattice constant in the range 4.90–5.75 A. The correlation effects are incorporated by performing the GGA + U calculations. The compounds are ductile in nature as indicated by their elastic properties like Cauchy pressure (CP), Pugh’s and Poisson’s ratios. All the three compounds MnVZ (Z = P, As, Sb) are half-metals with small indirect band gaps in the spin-down channels of the values 0.74, 0.30, and 1.29 eV respectively at Γ −X symmetry points. These compounds possess relatively small total magnetic moments of about ≈ 1μB. The analysis of optical properties reveals that these compounds are more active at small and high energies and show negligible activity at intermediate energies.