Optical and magneto-optical properties of ferromagnetic full-Heusler films: Experiments and first-principles calculations

We report a joint theoretical and experimental study focused on understanding the optical and magneto-optical properties of Co-based full-Heusler compounds. We show that magneto-optical spectra calculated within ab initio density functional theory are able to uniquely identify the features of the experimental spectra in terms of spin resolved electronic transitions. As expected for 3d-based magnets, we find that the largest Kerr rotation for these alloys is of the order of 0.3 degrees in polar geometry. In addition, we demonstrate that (i) multilayered structures have to be carefully handled in the theoretical calculations in order to improve the agreement with experiments, and (ii) combined theoretical and experimental investigations constitute a powerful approach in designing new materials for magneto-optical and spin-related applications.