Correlation effects on ground-state properties of ternary Heusler alloys: First-principles study
Authors: V. D. Buchelnikov, V. V. Sokolovskiy, O. N. Miroshkina, M. A. Zagrebin, J. Nokelainen, A. Pulkkinen, B. Barbiellini and E. Lähderanta
Phys. Rev. B 99, 014426 (2019)
Abstract: The strongly constrained and appropriately normed (SCAN) semilocal functional for exchange correlation is deployed to study the ground-state properties of ternary Heusler alloys transforming martensitically. The calculations are performed for ferromagnetic, ferrimagnetic, and antiferromagnetic phases. Comparisons between SCAN and generalized gradient approximation (GGA) are discussed. We find that SCAN yields smaller lattice parameters and higher magnetic moments compared to the GGA corresponding values for both austenite and martensite phases. Furthermore, in the case of ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic Heusler compounds, GGA and SCAN display similar trends in the total energy as a function of lattice constant and tetragonal ratio. However, for some ferrimagnetic Mn-rich Heusler compounds, different magnetic ground states are found within GGA and SCAN.