Surface resonance of thin films of the Heusler half-metal Co2MnSi probed by soft x-ray angular resolved photoemission spectroscopy

Heusler compounds are promising materials for spintronics with adjustable electronic properties including 100% spin polarization at the Fermi energy. We investigate the electronic states of AlOx capped epitaxial thin films of the ferromagnetic half-metal Co2MnSi ex situ by soft x-ray angular resolved photoemission spectroscopy (SX-ARPES). Good agreement between the experimental SX-ARPES results and photoemission calculations including surface effects was obtained. In particular, we observed in line with our calculations a large photoemission intensity at the center of the Brillouin zone, which does not originate from bulk states, but from a surface resonance. This provides strong evidence f…