The magnetostructural coupling between the structural and the magnetic transition has a crucial role in magnetoresponsive effects in a martensitic-transition system. A combination of various magnetoresponsive effects based on this coupling may facilitate the multifunctional applications of a host material. Here we demonstrate the feasibility of obtaining a stable magnetostructural coupling over a broad temperature window from 350 to 70 K, in combination with tunable magnetoresponsive effects, in mnniGe:Fe alloys. The alloy exhibits a magneticfield-induced martensitic transition from paramagnetic austenite to ferromagnetic martensite. The results indicate that stable magnetostructural coupling is accessible in hexagonal phasetransition systems to attain the magnetoresponsive effects with broad tunability.

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The strong coupling between the crystal structure and magnetic state (ferromagnetic or helical antiferromagnetic) of FeMnP 0.75 Si 0.25 is investigated using density functional theory in combination with atomistic spin dynamics. We find many competing energy minima for drastically different ferromagnetic and noncollinear magnetic configurations. We also find that the appearance of a helical spin-spiral magnetic structure at finite temperature is strongly related to one of the crystal structures reported for this material. Shorter Fe-Fe distances are found to lead to a destabilized ferromagnetic coupling, while out-of-plane Mn-Mn exchange interactions become negative with the shortening of the interatomic distances along the c axis, implying an antiferromagnetic coupling for the nearest-neighbor Mn-Mn interactions. The impact of the local dynamical correlations is also discussed.

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