<p> In the past three decades, spintronic devices have played an important technological role. Half-metallic alloys have drawn much attention due to their special properties and promised spintronic applications. This dissertation describes some theoretical techniques used in first-principal calculations of alloys that may be useful for spintronic device applications with an emphasis on half-metallic ferromagnets. I consider three types of simple spintronic materials using a wide range of theoretical techniques. They are (a) transition metal based half-Heusler alloys, like CrMnSb, where the ordering of the two transition metal elements within the unit cell can cause the material to be ferromagnetic semiconductors or semiconductors with zero net magnetic moment, (b) half-Heusler alloys involving Li, like LiMnSi, where the Li stabilizes the structure and increases the magnetic moment of zinc blende half-metals by one Bohr magneton per formula unit, and (c) zinc blende alloys, like CrAs, where many-body techniques improve the fundamental gap by considering the physical effects of the local field. Also, I provide a survey of the theoretical models and numerical methods used to treat the above systems.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:3602035 |
| Date | 11 January 2014 |
| Creators | Damewood, Liam James |
| Publisher | University of California, Davis |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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