Can binary sp half-metallic ferromagnets maintain half-metallicity when they form superlattices? A first-principles approach

Abstract

Abstract With the help of recent advanced progress in thin film deposition techniques such as molecular beam epitaxy and the ability to exactly control the growth of semiconductor materials, motivated by recent experimental facts of synthesizing much thicker superlattices than pure CrAs such as CrAs/GaAs on GaAs substrates [44] , encouraged by many similarities between binary 3 d and sp half-metallic ferromagnets, we introduce the superlattice engineering for achieving the possible sp HM materials with ordered structure. Based on first-principles density functional calculations, taking ( M X ) 1 / ( Y X ) 1 ( M = Sr or Ba; X = N , P, or As; Y = Al , Ga, or In) superlattices with zinc-blende structure in the (001) direction as example, we investigate the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of superlattices embodying sp HM materials as well as answer the question posed in the title. We hope that, these half-metallic ferromagnetic superlattices, at least some of them, could be useful in spintronics.