The innovation engine for new materials

Juan Camilo Castillo

Major: 

Electrical Engineering

Mentor(s): 

Jason Douglas

Faculty Sponsor(s): 

Ram Seshadri

Faculty Sponsor's Department(s): 

Materials

Project Title: 

PREPERATION AND MAGNETIC CHARACTERIZATION OF Ru2XZ HEUSLER COMPOUNDS (X=Mn, Fe, Co; Z=Si, Ge ,Sn)

Project Description: 

Our research focuses on characterizing the magnetic properties of intermetallic Heusler compounds, with particular attention on the development of alloys in which phases of differing magnetic ordering coexist within the same material, as this often leads to new and interesting behavior. For instance, it has been noted that ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic compounds that are layered together exhibit a phenomenon known as exchange bias; a possible application of these materials is for magnetic data storage such as in hard drives .The specific compounds studied were Ru2Mn1-xFexSi, Ru2(Mn,Fe,Co)Sn, with x ≤ 1, all of which exhibit Heusler crystal structures. We prepared these alloys using an arc melter followed by annealing them in a furnace to obtain a homogenous phase. We then analyzed the Heusler crystal structures by X-ray diffraction and by scanning electron microscopy. Furthermore, the magnetic properties, including Curie and Neel temperatures, saturation magnetization, and coercivity were characterized using a superconducting quantum interference device magnetometer. In the Ru2Mn1-xFexSi material we observed exchange-spring behavior with increasing Fe, likely caused by minor ferromagnetic phase. Consequently, these materials provide an appropriate system to explore exchange biasing and exchange-spring behavior.