Heusler compounds are widely studied due to their variety of magnetic properties making them ideal candidates for spintronic and magnetoelectronic applications. V3Al in its metastable D03-type Heusler structure is a prototype for a rare antiferromagnetic gapless behavior. We provide an extensive study on the electronic and magnetic properties of V3Al, V3Ga and V3In compounds based on state-of-the-art electronic structure calculations. We show that the ground state for all three is a G-type itinerant antiferromagnetic gapless semiconductor. The large antiferromagnetic exchange interactions lead to very high N\'eel temperatures, which are predicted to be around 1000 K. The coexistence of the gapless and antiferromagnetic behaviors in these compounds can be explained considering the simultaneous presence of three V atoms at the unit cell using arguments which have been employed for usual inverse Heusler compounds. We expect that our study on these compounds to enhance further the interest on them towards the optimization of their growth conditions and their eventual incorporation in devices.
@article{arxiv.1604.05137,
title = {Itinerant G-type antiferromagnetism in D0$_3$-type V$_3$Z (Z=Al, Ga, In) compounds: A first-principles study},
author = {Iosif Galanakis and Saban Tirpanci and Kemal Ozdogan and Ersoy Sasioglu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.05137},
year = {2016}
}