Lowitzer, S., Koedderitzsch, D., Ebert, H. and Staunton, J. B.. (2009) Electronic transport in ferromagnetic alloys and the Slater-Pauling curve. Physical Review B (Condensed Matter and Materials Physics), Vol.79 (No.11). Article no. 115109. ISSN 1098-0121

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Experimental measurements of the residual resistivity rho(x) of the binary-alloy system Fe1-xCrx have shown anomalous concentration dependence which deviates significantly from Nordheim's rule. In the low (x < 10%) Cr concentration regime the resistivity has been found to increase linearly with x until approximate to 10% Cr where the resistivity reaches a plateau persisting to approximate to 20% Cr. In this paper we present ab initio calculations of rho(x) which explain this anomalous behavior and which are based on the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker method in conjunction with the Kubo-Greenwood formalism. Furthermore we are able to show that the effects of short-range ordering or clustering have little effect via our use of the nonlocal coherent-potential approximation. For the interpretation of the results we study the alloy electronic structure by calculating the Bloch spectral function particularly in the vicinity of the Fermi energy. From the analysis of our results we infer that a similar behavior of the resistivity should also be obtained for iron-rich Fe1-xVx alloys-an inference confirmed by further explicit resistivity calculations. Both of these alloy systems belong to the same branch of the famous Slater-Pauling plot, and we postulate that other alloy systems from this branch should show a similar behavior. Our calculations show that the appearance of the plateau in the resistivity can be attributed to the dominant contribution of minority-spin electrons to the conductivity which is nearly unaffected by the increase in Cr/V concentration x, and we remark that this minority-spin electron feature is also responsible for the simple linear variation in the average moment in the Slater-Pauling plot for these materials.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics
Divisions:	Faculty of Science > Physics
Journal or Publication Title:	Physical Review B (Condensed Matter and Materials Physics)
Publisher:	American Physical Society
ISSN:	1098-0121
Date:	March 2009
Volume:	Vol.79
Number:	No.11
Number of Pages:	8
Page Range:	Article no. 115109
Identification Number:	10.1103/PhysRevB.79.115109
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access
Funder:	DFG
Grant number:	SPP 1145
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/28155

Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge

Request changes to a record

Actions (login required)

View Item