Structural, electronic and magnetic properties of the manganese telluride layers AMnTe2 (A = K, Rb, Cs) from first-principles calculations

Using first-principles electronic structure calculations based on density functional theory (DFT), we investigate the structural, electronic and magnetic properties of the layered ternary manganese tellurides: AMnTe(2) (A = K, Rb, and Cs). Calculations are accomplished within the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave method (FP-LAPW) using the generalized gradient approximation GGA formalism for the exchange correlation term. We have treated all ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic and non-magnetic phases and found that the ferromagnetic is the ground-state for all studied compounds. Moreover, all three compounds under study are half-metals with a total spin magnetic per formula unit of 4 mu(B) which is mainly localized at the Mn atoms. We express for these compounds a new version of the Slater-Pauling rule and discuss in detail the origin of the minority-spin gap. Finally, we have also calculated some other relevant quantities such as the bulk modulus B, the pressure derivative B', the virtual semiconducting gap E-g, and the half-metallic gap E-HM.