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We report a combined theoretical and experimental study of a new topological semimetal CrFeVGa with an emphasis on the role of atomic disorder on the magnetoelectronic properties and its applications.CrFeVGa belongs to the quaternary Heusler alloy family and crystallizes in the cubic structure. Synchrotron XRD measurement confirms B2 disorder, which plays a crucial role in dictating the electronic and magnetic properties of the system.

In this work, we report the structural, magnetic and electrical and thermal transport properties of the Heusler-type alloy Ru2NbAl. From the detailed analysis of magnetization data, we infer the presence of superparamagnetically interacting clusters with a Pauli paramagnetic background, while short-range ferromagnetic interaction is developed among the clusters below 5 K. The presence of this ferromagnetic interaction is confirmed through heat capacity measurements. The relatively small value of electronic contribution to specific heat, gamma (~2.7 mJ/mol-K2), as well as the linear nature of temperature dependence of Seebeck coefficient indicate a semi-metallic ground state with a pseudo-gap that is also supported by our electronic structure calculations. The activated nature of resistivity is reflected in the observed negative temperature coefficient and has its origin in the charge carrier localization due to antisite defects, inferred from magnetic measurements as well as structural analysis. Although the absolute value of thermoelectric figure of merit is rather low (ZT = 5.2*10-3) in Ru2NbAl, it is the largest among all the reported non-doped full Heusler alloys., Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures

We report the structural, vibrational and electrical transport properties up to 16 GPa of the 1T-TiTe2, a prominent layered 2D system, which is predicted to show a series of topologically trivial - nontrivial transitions under hydrostatic compression. We clearly show signatures of two iso-structural transition at 2 GPa and 4 GPa obtained from the minima in c/a ratio concomitant with the phonon linewidth anomalies of Eg and A1g modes at around the same pressures, providing strong indication of unusual electron-phonon coupling associated to these transitions. Resistivity presents nonlinear behavior over similar pressure ranges providing a strong indication of the electronic origin of these pressure driven isostructural transitions. Our data thus provide clear evidences of topological changes at A and L point of the Brillouin zone predicted to be present in the compressed 1T-TiTe2. Between 4 GPa and 8 GPa, the c/a ratio shows a plateau suggesting a transformation from an anisotropic 2D layer to a quasi 3D crystal network. First principles calculations suggest that the 2D to quasi 3D evolution without any structural phase transitions is mainly due to the increased interlayer Te-Te interactions (bridging) via the charge density overlap. In addition to the pressure dependent isostructural phase transitions, our data also evidences the occurrence of a first order structural phase transition from the trigonal (P-3m1) phase at higher pressures. We estimate the start of this structural phase transition to be 8 GPa and the symmetric of the new high-pressure phase to be monoclinic (C2/m)., Comment: 22 pages, 11 Figures, 2 Tables