Tunable Vacancy Order and Emergent Functionalities in Half‐Heusler Crystals
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<sub>1-</sub> <sub>δ</sub> 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.
Authors
- Mingyuan Piao
- Shen Han (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0426-8453)
- Chenguang Fu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9545-3277)
- Xuezhang Xiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4035-5044)
- Airan Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1683-4347)
- Binghui Ge (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6470-6278)
- Ziheng Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1822-5609)
- Mengzhao Chen
- Xiaojuan Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5037-4615)
- Tiejun Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3868-0633)
- Zhongkang Han (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1489-6824)
- Yujing Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0353-0467)
- Yue Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1259-020X)
- Jiawei Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0740-0851)
- Kaiyang Xia
- Pengfei Nan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-0454-1262)
Institutions
- Anhui University (CN)
- Wenzhou University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (CN)
- Shanghai Institute of Ceramics (CN)
- Beijing University of Chemical Technology (CN)
- Zhejiang University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Materials
- Published
- 2025-03-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202418520
- Citations
- 7
- Primary Topic
- Heusler alloys: electronic and magnetic properties
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.99
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Higher Education Discipline Innovation Project
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities