Structural, electronic, magnetic properties and critical behavior of the equiatomic quaternary Heusler alloy CoFeTiSn.

• The equiatomic quaternary Heusler alloy CoFeTiSn has been studied. • The half-metallic behavior of this alloy has been studied and improved. • The electronic properties have been investigated by the ab-initio method. • The critical temperature is presented and discussed by Monte Carlo simulations. In this article, we study the exchange coupling interactions of the equiatomic quaternary Heusler alloy CoFeTiSn, using the two methods: Monte Carlo simulations and the ab-initio method. In a first step, we use the ab-initio calculations to investigate the structural, the electronic and the magnetic properties of this alloy under the GGA method. The analysis of the energy dependence on the lattice parameter a (Å) of the equiatomic quaternary Heusler alloy CoFeTiSn, is discussed for different atomic configurations. The ferromagnetic configuration is found to be the more stable one, with an optimal lattice parameter value 6.00 Å. On the other hand, the electronic structure results show that the compound CoFeTiSn exhibits a half-metallic character and a spin polarization of 100% at the Fermi-level. The total magnetic moment of this alloy is found to be equal to 2.00 μ B which follows the Slater Pauling rule. Our results support the half-metallic behavior of the studied material. In order to complete this study, we reported the dependence of the critical transition temperature as a function of the parameter α of the equiatomic quaternary Heusler alloy CoFeTiSn. We showed that the critical temperature increases almost linearly with an increase of the values of the parameter α. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]