Extended investigation of intermartensitic transitions in Ni-Mn-Ga magnetic shape memory alloys: A detailed phase diagram determination

Martensitic transitions in shape memory Ni-Mn-Ga Heusler alloys take place between a high temperature austenite and a low temperature martensite phase. However, intermartensitic transformations have also been encountered that occur from one martensite phase to another. To examine intermartensitic transitions in magnetic shape memory alloys in detail, we carried out temperature dependent magnetization, resistivity, and x-ray diffraction measurements to investigate the intermartensitic transition in Ni50Mn50-xGax in the composition range 12 x 25 at. %. Rietveld refined x-ray diffraction results are found to be consistent with magnetization and resistivity data. Depending on composition, we observe that intermartensitic transitions occur in the sequences 7M ! L10; 5M ! 7M, and 5M ! 7M ! L10 with decreasing temperature. The L10 non-modulated structure is most stable at low temperature.