Tunable Vacancy Order and Emergent Functionalities in Half‐Heusler Crystals
Abstract
Abstract Extra chemical order within periodic crystalline lattices offers a promising approach for designing materials with emergent functionalities. However, achieving tunable extra chemical order in crystalline materials remains challenging. Here, it is found that the vacancy order in cation‐deficient half‐Heusler crystals V 1‐ δ CoSb can be tuned from long‐range order (LRO) to short‐range order (SRO), or vice versa. The vacancy LRO and SRO configurations are uncovered by scanning transmission electron microscopy analysis and Monte Carlo simulations. Remarkably, the evolution of vacancy order induces profound changes in electrical, magnetic, and thermal properties, as well as hydrogen storage characteristics. In particular, the electronic density of state effective mass exhibits a nearly threefold increase, while ferromagnetism emerges from infancy when tuning the vacancy order from LRO to SRO. These results elucidate the local chemical order‐property relationship and highlight the great potential of achieving desirable functionalities by designing extra chemical order in crystalline solids.
Article Details
Authors (16)
Ziheng Gao
Zhongkang Han
State Key Laboratory of Silicon and Advanced Semiconductor Materials and Center of Electron Microscopy, School of Materials Science and Engineering
Yue Zhang
Chenguang Fu
State Key Laboratory of Silicon and Advanced Semiconductor Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering
Kaiyang Xia
Institute of Wenzhou Zhejiang University Wenzhou 325006 China
Yujing Zhang
Mingyuan Piao
State Key Laboratory of Silicon and Advanced Semiconductor Materials School of Materials Science and Engineering Zhejiang University Hangzhou 310058 China
Mengzhao Chen
State Key Laboratory of Silicon and Advanced Semiconductor Materials School of Materials Science and Engineering Zhejiang University Hangzhou 310058 China
Shen Han
Airan Li
Xiaojuan Hu
Pengfei Nan
State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Information Acquisition and Protection Technology, Leibniz International Joint Research Center of Materials Sciences of Anhui Province, Institutes of Physical Science and Information Technology
Jiawei Zhang
Xuezhang Xiao
Binghui Ge
State Key Laboratory of Opto-Electronic Information Acquisition and Protection Technology, Anhui University, Hefei, China.
Tiejun Zhu
State Key Laboratory of Silicon and Advanced Semiconductor Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering