Optical Properties of Heusler Alloy Mn2FeAl with the β-Mn Structure

The structure and optical properties of the Mn2FeAl Heusler alloy have been investigated. It is shown that the alloy crystallizes into a structure of the β-Mn type. The behavior of the optical conductivity of the alloy, which is anomalous for metallic systems (namely, the absence of a contribution from the intraband absorption and the presence of the intensive interband absorption), is observed in the IR spectral range. It is shown that this behavior is due to the following peculiarities of the electronic structure: the Fermi level is located in the region of a high density of states formed by the d states of Mn and Fe atoms.