Pressure effect on magnetic moments in ordered Ni3Mn and disordered Ni100−x Mn x alloys: ab initio calculation and experiment

We have revealed a substantial difference in the pressure behavior of magnetization of the ordered Ni3Mn and the disordered Ni75Mn25 and Ni80Mn20 alloys in the pressure range up to 1.2 GPa. To explain in detail the peculiarities of magnetic properties of the Ni-rich NiMn alloys, the reference electronic structure of the alloys was calculated using the tight-binding linear muffin-tin orbital approach. The effect of disorder was described by the coherent potential approximation. The theoretical ab initio calculations (with changes of the lattice parameters up to 1%) elucidated the pressure stability of the magnetic Mn moments and revealed that the very pronounced decrease in the magnetization of the disordered alloys under pressure is caused by the relatively small change in portion of the Mn moments with parallel and anti-parallel orientation with respect to the total moment. The quantitative agreement with experiment has been reached for the pressure parameters dln M/dP.