We report periodic modulation on (001) surface of Ni2MnGa ferromagnetic shape memory alloy. For the stoichiometric surface, analysis of the low energy electron diffraction (LEED) spot profiles shows that the modulation is incommensurate. The modulation appears at 200 K, concomitant with the first order structural transition to the martensitic phase

Barman, S.

D'Souza, S.

Dhaka, R.

Lograsso, Thomas

Maniraj, M.

Nayak, J.

Rai, Abhishek

Schlagel, Deborah

We report periodic modulation on (001) surface of Ni2MnGa ferromagnetic shape memory alloy. For the stoichiometric surface, analysis of the low energy electron diffraction (LEED) spot profiles shows that the modulation is incommensurate. The modulation appears at 200 K, concomitant with the first order structural transition to the martensitic phase.Copyright 2011 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics.
This article is from AIP Conference Proceedings 1349 (2011): 767–768 and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3606084.</p

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Modulation on Ni2MnGa(001) surfaceS. W. D’Souza, Abhishek Rai, J. Nayak, M. Maniraj, R. S. Dhaka et al.  Citation: AIP Conf. Proc. 1349, 767 (2011); doi: 10.1063/1.3606084 View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3606084 View Table of Contents: http://proceedings.aip.org/dbt/dbt.jsp?KEY=APCPCS&Volume=1349&Issue=1 Published by the AIP Publishing LLC.  Additional information on AIP Conf. Proc.Journal Homepage: http://proceedings.aip.org/ Journal Information: http://proceedings.aip.org/about/about_the_proceedings Top downloads: http://proceedings.aip.org/dbt/most_downloaded.jsp?KEY=APCPCS Information for Authors: http://proceedings.aip.org/authors/information_for_authors Downloaded 23 Sep 2013 to 129.186.176.91. This article is copyrighted as indicated in the abstract. Reuse of AIP content is subject to the terms at: http://proceedings.aip.org/about/rights_permissionsModulation on Ni2MnGa(001) surface S. W. D′Souza, Abhishek Rai, J. Nayak, M. Maniraj, R. S. Dhaka, S. R. Barman UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, Khandwa Road, Indore, 452001, Madhya Pradesh, India D. L. Schlagel, T. A. Lograsso Ames Laboratory U. S. DOE, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011-3020, USA Email: sunilwilfred@gmail.com Abstract.  We report periodic modulation on (001) surface of Ni2MnGa ferromagnetic shape memory alloy. For the stoichiometric surface, analysis of the low energy electron diffraction (LEED) spot profiles shows that the modulation is incommensurate. The modulation appears at 200K, concomitant with the first order structural transition to the martensitic phase.  Keywords: Low-energy electron diffraction, Commensurate-incommensurate transformations PACS: 61.05.jh, 68.35.Rh, 71.45.Lr, 75.50.Cc INTRODUCTION        There is a surge of interest in the basic physics of Ni-Mn-Ga ferromagnetic shape memory alloy because of its potential as a functional material with large magnetic field induced strain as a magnetic sensor with large negative magnetoresistance. Ni2MnGa, which is ferromagnetic with Curie temperature of 375K, has a cubic L21 structure in the austenitic phase. Around 200K, it undergoes a first order structural transformation to the lower symmetry martensitic phase. Since the magnetic field induced strain is related to the modulated structure, its behavior at the surface is of fundamental importance. Furthermore, surface study of Ni2MnGa is important because it could act as a smart substrate and modify the properties of the adlayers grown on it. EXPERIMENTAL       Ni2MnGa single crystal was grown by the Bridgman method. The bulk composition was confirmed by wavelength dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. LEED was performed at a base pressure of about 4×10-11 mbar using ErLEED optics from Specs GmbH, Germany. Stoichiometric Ni2MnGa(001) surface was prepared by sputtering with 1.5 keV Ar+ ions and annealing at 700K for 1 hr.1 The cleanliness and the surface composition were determined using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). To obtain a single variant state in the martensitic phase, the crystal was clamped along [0,1] direction in a sample holder designed for studying complex metal surfaces. The martensitic transition temperatures for the bulk crystal have been determined using differential scanning calorimetry. Heat flow data show a clear signature of a first order martensitic transition with the martensitic start temperature (Ms) of 206.5K, martensitic finish temperature Mf= 205K, austenitic start temperature As= 215.7K and austenitic finish temperature Af= 216.7K. The width of the hysteresis (As− Ms= 9K) is small. The latent heat is 0.2 KJ/mole. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS Ni2MnGa is in the austenitic phase at room temperature since Ms is 206.5K.  Sharp LEED spots representing the square reciprocal lattice is observed in (Fig. 1(a, b)), indicating that the surface is fairly well ordered. Comparison of LEED patterns recorded with different beam energies (Ep) shows that faceting and surface reconstruction are absent. The square unit cell shown by the dashed lines in Fig. 1(a) correspond to the (001) projection of the body centered tetragonal primitive unit cell of the bulk structure. A spectacular modification of the LEED pattern occurs in the matensitic phase with the appearance of an array of satellite spots that are observed over the range 85<Ep<120 eV in the [1,0] direction in (Fig. 1(c–f)). Solid State Physics, Proceedings of the 55th DAE Solid State Physics Symposium 2010AIP Conf. Proc. 1349, 767-768 (2011); doi: 10.1063/1.3606084©   2011 American Institute of Physics 978-0-7354-0905-7/$30.00767Downloaded 23 Sep 2013 to 129.186.176.91. This article is copyrighted as indicated in the abstract. Reuse of AIP content is subject to the terms at: http://proceedings.aip.org/about/rights_permissions           The intensity profiles in Fig. 2 show that all the satellite spots move toward the (00) spot as Ep increases. To understand the origin of the satellite spots in the martensitic phase, we first examine their separations.   FIGURE 1.  Low energy electron diffraction (LEED) patterns of Ni2MnGa (001) in (a-b) the austenitic phase at room temperature and in (c-f) the martensitic phase at 100K. The electron beam energies (Ep) in eV are shown in the bottom right corners.  FIGURE 2.   A series of intensity profiles in the martensitic phase at 100K along [¯10] for different Ep. where b*MS (=gp) is the primitive RL vector.  To quantify the spot separations, we have considered 37 profiles for averaging, including those shown in Fig. 2. The separations are obtained as a fraction of the primitive RL vector b*MS, which is half of the non-primitive RL vector obtained by joining spot 5 and (00). It is clear that the fundamental reflections like spot 5 and (00) are surrounded by satellites corresponding to a surface modulation wave vector qS with maximum n= 2, as shown in Fig. 2. Averaging over 50 spot separations excluding the 2-3 separation, we obtain qS= (0.4246±0.0012)b*MS, which is very close to the 5M incommensurate qB value of 0.4248 for bulk Ni2MnGa reported by Righi et al.2 This similarity of qS to qB demonstrates that the modulation at the surface is indeed incommensurate.          Having demonstrated the existence of an incommensurate modulation for stoichiometric Ni2MnGa surface, here we discuss its origin. The theoretical work by Bungaro et al.3 established a dynamical instability of the TA2 phonon related to a long range anomalous contribution to the phonon frequency due to electronic screening, which was shown to arise due to Fermi surface nesting with a nesting wave vector of 0.43.3 CDW is known to be driven by Fermi surface nesting and interestingly, the nesting wave vector (0.42-0.43) obtained from theory3 is very similar to qS (= 0.4246) obtained by us. Experimental support for CDW till date has come from anomalies in phonon dispersion curves from inelastic neutron studies and transverse modulation with q=0.43 was related to electron phonon interactions.4From present studies, evidence of CDW is obtained from the temperature dependence of the LEED pattern. Patterns recorded at small temperature steps of 2-3K during cooling show that the surface modulation appears at 200K, concomitant with the first order structural transition to the martensitic phase. Thus, 200K is the surface martensitic start temperature (MsS). In the martensitic phase, as the temperature is decreased from 200K to 100K, the satellite peaks do not shift but become more intense with respect to the fundamental spot. This shows that the surface CDW is more stabilized at lower temperatures, which indicates electron-phonon coupling to be its possible origin.       To conclude, we demonstrate evidence of an incommensurate modulation on Ni2MnGa(001) that  possibly arises from surface charge density wave related to Fermi surface nesting.  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Fundings from Max Planck Partner group project is thankfully acknowledged.  REFERENCES 1. R. S. Dhaka et al.  Surface Science 603, 1999-2004 (2009). 2. L. Righi et. al.  J. Solid. State Chem. 179, 3525-3533 (2006). 3.  C. Bungaro et.al. Phys. Rev. B 68, 134104-9 (2003). 4.  A. Zheludev et.al. Phys. Rev. B 54, 15 045-15050 (1996).  768Downloaded 23 Sep 2013 to 129.186.176.91. This article is copyrighted as indicated in the abstract. Reuse of AIP content is subject to the terms at: http://proceedings.aip.org/about/rights_permissions

Modulation on Ni2MnGa(001) surface

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Modulation on Ni2MnGa(001) surface

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