Magnetic, thermal, and electrical properties of an Ni45.37Mn40.91In13.72 Heusler alloy

The magnetization, the electrical resistivity, the specific heat, the thermal conductivity, and the thermal diffusion of a polycrystalline Heusler alloy Ni45.37Mn40.91In13.72 sample are studied. Anomalies, which are related to the coexistence of martensite and austenite phases and the change in their ratio induced by a magnetic field and temperature, are revealed and interpreted. The behavior of the properties of the alloy near Curie temperature T (C) also demonstrates signs of a structural transition, which suggests that the detected transition is a first-order magnetostructural phase transition. The nontrivial behavior of specific heat detected near the martensite transformation temperatures is partly related to a change in the electron density of states near the Fermi level. The peculiar peak of phonon thermal conductivity near the martensitic transformation is interpreted as a consequence of the appearance of additional soft phonon modes, which contribute to the specific heat and the thermal conductivity.