Half-metallicity and magnetism in the Co2MnAl/CoMnVAl heterostructure

We present a study of the electronic structure and magnetism of Co2MnAl, CoMnVAl, and their heterostructure. We employ a combination of density-functional theory and dynamical mean-field theory (DFT+DMFT). We find that Co2MnAl is a half-metallic ferromagnet, whose electronic and magnetic properties are not drastically changed by strong electronic correlations, static or dynamic. Nonquasiparticle states are shown to appear in the minority spin gap without affecting the spin polarization at the Fermi level predicted by standard DFT. We find that CoMnVAl is a semiconductor or a semimetal, depending on the employed computational approach. We then focus on the electronic and magnetic properties of the Co2MnAl/CoMnVAl heterostructure, predicted by previous first-principle calculations as a possible candidate for spin-injecting devices. We find that two interfaces, Co-Co/V-Al and Co-Mn/Mn-Al, preserve the half-metallic character, with and without including electronic correlations. We also analyze the magnetic exchange interactions in the bulk and at the interfaces. At the Co-Mn/Mn-Al interface, competing magnetic interactions are likely to favor the formation of a noncollinear magnetic order, which is detrimental for the spin polarization.