Optimised growth of epitaxial D019 Mn3Ge(0001) thin films via single target sputtering

Materials with chemical identity Mn3X, where X is Sn, Ga, or Ge, are Heusler alloys with intriguing properties that are fundamentally and technologically interesting.

By Ozdemir, Ho, Brennan-Rich +11Oct 26, 2026

Score████░░░░░░4.3

Caveats

Preprint; not yet peer reviewed.

VerdictWorth a reader's time today.

Read the original PDF

Abstract

Materials with chemical identity Mn3X, where X is Sn, Ga, or Ge, are Heusler alloys with intriguing properties that are fundamentally and technologically interesting. They have topological properties with a non-trivial band structure that identify them as Weyl semimetals in the bulk. Their magnetic properties, which give rise to the topological band structure through spin-orbit coupling, are determined by their Kagome lattice structure, making them chiral non-collinear antiferromagnets. Among these materials, Mn3Ge is particularly interesting because it has a larger Berry curvature, leading to a large anomalous Hall conductivity and motivating potential spintronic applications. The desirable properties are only obtained when Mn3Ge has the D019 crystal structure, so producing an easily reproducible growth recipe is the main objective of this paper. Here we show that ultra-high-quality thin films of Mn3Ge with D019 symmetry can be grown from a Mn5Ge target on an Al2O3(0001) substrate with a Ru(0001) seed layer. The expected non-collinear antiferromagnetic order was confirmed by the finding of weak zero-field magnetisation (0.0086 +/- 0.0002) mu_B/Mn that does not saturate at high magnetic fields and has a Neel temperature of (291 +/- 2) K.

Servet Ozdemir, Ping-Luen Ho, Callum Brennan-Rich, Matthew Rogers, Philippa Shepley, Ahmet Yagmur, Ismet Gelen, Sehwan Song, Zabeada Aslam, Mannan Ali, Shelly Conroy, Sandrine Heutz, Gavin Burnell, B J Hickey

The editor's rubric

Heuristic review

Leverage3 / 5: A method or resource many groups across the field will adopt within a year.; 18% of this desk’s rubric
Magnitude2 / 5: Solid incremental gain on a meaningful problem.; 20% of this desk’s rubric
Evidence3 / 5: Solid: multiple benchmarks or cohorts, ablations, fair baselines, released code or data.; 22% of this desk’s rubric
Novelty3 / 5: A genuinely new approach to an open problem.; 22% of this desk’s rubric
Trajectory2 / 5: Some room to improve with obvious engineering.; 10% of this desk’s rubric
Stakes2 / 5: Benefits a professional community (practitioners, clinicians, engineers).; 8% of this desk’s rubric

Dimension	Level	Weight	What that level means
Leverage	███░░3/5	18%	A method or resource many groups across the field will adopt within a year.
Magnitude	██░░░2/5	20%	Solid incremental gain on a meaningful problem.
Evidence	███░░3/5	22%	Solid: multiple benchmarks or cohorts, ablations, fair baselines, released code or data.
Novelty	███░░3/5	22%	A genuinely new approach to an open problem.
Trajectory	██░░░2/5	10%	Some room to improve with obvious engineering.
Stakes	██░░░2/5	8%	Benefits a professional community (practitioners, clinicians, engineers).

Editor’s rationale

Heuristic triage from title and abstract text only, not a reading of the paper. Cues found: method (we report); novelty (discovery); verification (error bars, experimental validation, independent replication).

How the score was computed

rank-2026-10-18

Score████░░░░░░4.3

Score = 10 × (75% × adjusted merit / 10 + 15% × attention + 10% × freshness)

Desks place stronger verdicts first, then use this score to order work within the same verdict.

Merit: 5.2 / 10; Weighted rubric, evidence-gated.
Adjusted merit: 4.5 / 10; Shrunk toward the desk prior by editor confidence (40%).
Attention: 0%; Citations, upvotes, points, mentions.
Freshness: 89%; Half-life decay since publication.

No attention signals recorded yet.

The record

Reviewed by heuristic-v10 on Oct 27, 2026, 07:29 UTC. Paper type: method.
Categories: cond-mat.mtrl-sci, cond-mat.mes-hall
TOP, No.5 in the Physics edition of October 27, 2026.