Optical and magneto-optical properties of AuMnSn

Abstract

We have measured room-temperature magneto-optical properties of AuMnSn on a single-crystalline sample. The maximum polar Kerr rotation was predicted to be very large, about -0.7 degrees at 1.2 eV [L. Offernes, P. Ravindran, and A. Kjekshus, Appl. Phys. Lett. 82, 2862 (2003)]. We found the experimental maximum Kerr rotation and ellipticity were about three times smaller than predicted and appeared at energies about 0.6 eV higher than predicted, which is possibly due to inaccurate handling of the theory based on the local spin-density approximation to density-function theory for the localized 4d and 5d orbitals in AuMnSn.