Invited Talk with Akio Kimura (October 3)

BCMaterials is proud to host Akio Kimura, Professor at the Graduate School of Advanced Science and Engineering of the Hiroshima University (Japan) in a new invited talk. The event will take place on October 3 at the auditorium of the Martina Casiano building, headquarters of BCMaterials. The talk is set to start at 12:00.

Prof. Kimura will present the talk titled: “Probing Electronic Structures of Heusler-type Metamagnetic Shape Memory Alloys by Synchrotron Spectroscopy”.

Heusler-type metamagnetic shape memory alloys (MetaMSMAs) have attracted considerable attention due to their giant functional responses, including magnetocaloric, elastocaloric, and barocaloric effects. These remarkable properties are intimately linked to drastic changes in magnetization associated with the first-order martensitic transformation (MT). Understanding the electronic structures and element-specific magnetic properties underlying these transformations is crucial for designing novel multifunctional materials.

In this seminar, Prof. Kimura will present a comprehensive overview of our synchrotron-based spectroscopic studies on Mn- and Co-based Heusler alloys. Using soft X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) and hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HAXPES), his team has directly probed the evolution of the electronic density of states (DOS) and local magnetic moments across structural and magnetic transitions. In particular, temperature-dependent HAXPES on Mn1.92Ni1.61Fe0.10Sn0.37 revealed pronounced modifications of the near-EF states during the martensitic transformation, consistent with first-principles calculations when a reasonable Fermi-level shift is considered. The results demonstrate that Mn and Ni 3d states dominate the DOS near EF, leading to lattice instabilities via the band Jahn–Teller effect.

Admission to the lecture is free, subject to capacity.