Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Schlagel, D L.
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.
Transmission synchrotron diffraction was employed to characterize the Ga ordering in magnetostrictive Fe{sub 100-x}Ga{sub x} alloys with Ga concentrations from 0 to 20.3 at.%. The experiments focused on the development of atomic short-range ordering (SRO) by analysis of the diffuse scattering appearing at superlattice positions of the D0{sub 3} ordered alloy structure. No SRO was found for Ga concentrations less than 4 at. %. Between 13 and 20.3 at. %, D0{sub 3}-type SRO clusters are observed whose size increases with Ga concentration for both slow-cooled and quenched samples. Thermal quenching of the samples suppresses the cluster sizes when compared to slow-cooled samples of the same concentration. For quenched samples with large Ga concentration, Ga pairing is evidenced by growing B2-type correlations. At low concentrations, the presence of SRO appears to have little (if any) effect on the enhanced magnetostriction. However, the dramatic suppression of magnetostriction near {approx} 20 at. % Ga can be linked rapid growth of SRO just before the onset of long-range chemical order.
In addition to the prototypical Ni-Mn-based Heusler alloys, the Co-Ni-Ga systems have recently been suggested as another prospective materials class for magnetic shape-memory applications. We provide a characterization of the dynamical properties of this material and their relation to the electronic structure within a combined experimental and theoretical approach. This relies on inelastic neutron scattering to obtain the phonon dispersion while first-principles calculations provide the link between dynamical properties and electronic structure. In contrast to Ni{sub 2}MnGa, where the softening of the TA{sub 2} phonon branch is related to Fermi-surface nesting, our results reveal that the respective anomalies are absent in Co-Ni-Ga, in the phonon dispersions as well as in the electronic structure.
Gd{sub 5}Ge{sub 4} crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pnma, and orders antiferromagnetically below the Neel temperature T{sub N} {approx} 127 K. We have employed x-ray resonant magnetic scattering to elucidate the details of the magnetic structure. The magnetic unit cell is the same as the chemical unit cell. From azimuth scans and the Q dependence of the magnetic scattering, all three Gd sites in the structure were determined to be in the same magnetic space group Pnma. The magnetic moments are primarily aligned along the c axis and the c components of the magnetic moments at the three different sites are equal. The ferromagnetic Gd-rich slabs are stacked antiferromagnetically along the b direction.