Magnetism and half-metallicity of some Cr-based alloys and their potential for application in spintronic devices

We present results of the exchange interactions and Curie temperatures in some Cr-based chalcogenides and pnictides. The calculations are performed mostly for Zinc Blende (ZB) structure with the lattice parameter varying between 5.45 and 6.6 Å, appropriate for some typical II-VI and III-V semiconducting substrates. Electronic structure is calculated via the linear muffintin-orbitals method and disorder effects, when appropriate, are taken into account via the coherent potential approximation. Calculated exchange interactions are used to estimate the Curie temperature by employing the mean-field and the random phase approximations. For CrTe we compare the results of the ZB and Rock-Salt (RS) structures.