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The crystal structures and magnetic properties of Ni50-xCoxMn39Sn11 (8≤x≤10) Heusler alloys are investigated. As a result, we achieve the magnetic field induced martensitic transformation in Ni42Co8Mn39Sn11. It is found that the saturation magnetic moments of alloys increase with Co content increasing. Moreover, a superspin glass behavior and a large exchange bias effect are also found in samples with Co content being higher than 8. We confirm the coexistence of superspin glass of the martensite and ferromagnetic parent phase, which is the physical origin of the exchange bias effect. On the other hand, we propose that the origin of superspin glass in our NiMnCoSn system is due to the occurence of Mn-Mn cluster as reported by Ma et al. in Heusler Mn2Ni1.6Sn0.4 alloys [Ma L, Wang W H, Liu J B, Li J Q, Zhen M, Hou D L and Wu G H 2011 Appl. Phys. Lett. 99 182507].

The crystal structures and magnetic properties of Mn2CoMxGa1-x and Mn2CoMxAl1-x (M=Cr, Fe, Co) alloys are investigated through experiment and calculation. Due to the covalent effect, the doped Fe and Co atoms preferentially occupy the A sites. It causes that some MnA (-2.1 B) atoms become MnD (3.2 B) and a local ferromagnetic structure of MnB-CoC-MnD is generated in the ferrimagnetic matrix, showing that an increment of molecular moment is as high as 6.18 B. The achievement of the ferromagnetic structure consumes the exchange interaction energy, consequently, reducing the TC in Fe doping alloys. It is found that the toleration for doping Co in Mn2CoAl reaches up to x=0.64, much more than that in Mn2CoGa (x=0.36), and the change from ordered B2 to A2 structures along with the decrease of Al content. These observations reveal the importance of the covalent effect in these intermetallic compounds. The Cr doping shows an abnormal increment of molecular moment of 3.65 B and increases the TC rapidly, which implies that Cr atoms may take an atomic configuration thereby disobeying to the occupation rule.

The crystal structure, magnetism and transport properties of a series alloys from Co2CrGa to Cr2CoGa (Co50-xCrx+25Ga25, x=0—25) have been investigated by the experimental and KKR-CPA-LDA calculation methods. Substituting Cr for Co atoms, the crystal structure changes from L21 type to Hg2CuTi structure, which make, the lattice parameters increase about 0.69% linearly. Also, the ferromagnetic coupling turns to anti-ferromagnetic coupling, that makes the magnetic moment linearly decrease from 3.06μB to nearly zero. Through ab initio study of CPA, it has been found that the extraneous Cr atom at the A site couples anti-ferromagnetically with the Cr atom originally situated at B site with a nearly equal magnitude of magnetic moment, and the magnetic moment of Co atoms occupying the C site decreases from 0.60μB to 0.21μB through the whole substituting process. Based on the results of magnetic measurement and calculation, about 20% atomic disorder in the alloy Cr2CoGa has been confirmed, which is consistent with the observation of the X-ray examination. It is interesting that a non-linear "middle component phenomenon" has been observed in the composition dependence of both Curie temperature and the electrical resistivity. The related discussions is based on the magnetic environment change surrounding the magnetic atoms.