A p-type Heusler compound: Growth, structure, and properties of epitaxial thin NiYBi films on MgO(100)

Epitaxial semiconducting NiYBi thin films were directly prepared on MgO(100) substrates by magnetron sputtering. The intensity ratio of the (200) and (400) diffraction peaks, I(200)/I(400) = 2.93, was close to the theoretical value (3.03). The electronic structure of NiYBi was calculated using WIEN2k and a narrow indirect band gap of width 210 meV was found. The valence band spectra of the films obtained by linear dichroism in hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy exhibit clear structures that are in good agreement with the calculated band structure of NiYBi.