co2mnsi samples were prepared and investigated completely in situ in an ultrahigh vacuum cluster consisting of sputtering chambers , an molecular beam epitaxy ( mbe ) chamber , and a srups chamber equipped with a he gas discharge lamp ( h=21.2  ev ) and a hemispherical energy analyzer with multi - channel spin filter27 ( energy resolution 400  mev , sherman function s=0.420.05 ( ref .
first , an epitaxial buffer layer of the heusler compound co2mnga ( 30  nm ) was grown on the mgo(100 ) substrate by radio frequency ( rf)-sputtering at room temperature . by an optimized additional annealing process at 550  c l21 order
is obtained as shown by high energy electron diffraction ( rheed ) and x - ray diffraction ( xrd ) .
. induced by the buffer layer the co2mnsi thin films show already some degree of l21 surface order as deposited . by
additional annealing the order is improved as demonstrated for the film surface by rheed ( fig .
a low annealing temperature of ta=300c results in a significantly increased intensity of the characteristic rheed l21 superstructure peaks .
however , by xrd no ( 111 ) peak , which is indicative for l21 order , is observed for ta<400  c .
this suggests that l21 order is present at the film surface , but not in the bulk of the thin film . for ta400  c the ( 111 ) peak appears in xrd . for ta500  c
some ga from the buffer layer is observed by core - level haxpes to have diffused to the co2mnsi surface .
the magnetic moments of all samples amount to 5  b per formula unit at 4  k and is reduced by 3% at room temperature , in agreement with theoretical predictions and experimental values measured on bulk samples29 .
figure 2 shows in situ ups spectra of co2mnsi thin films annealed at different temperatures ta without spin analysis .
the large acceptance angle of the spectrometer ( 10 ) and applied sample bias voltage of 10  v result in k|| values which cover the complete brillouin zone .
the spectra of all samples are almost identical , only the broad hump at eef=2,900  mev vanishes and the peak at eef=1,150  mev is slightly broadened for the deposited and the ta=550  c sample . however , by spin analysis clear differences between the samples are revealed .
figure 3 shows the spin polarization of mgo / co2mnga(30  nm)/co2mnsi(70  nm ) thin films annealed at different temperatures ta as measured by srups .
a huge room temperature spin polarization of 9093% at the fermi energy at room temperature was obtained for samples annealed between 300  c and 450  c . in combination with the ups calculations discussed below
, these exceptionally high values are the first direct observation of half - metallicity in the surface region of any heusler compound , which provide strong evidence for 100% spin polarization in the bulk of the thin films . with lower annealing temperatures
the spin polarization is reduced at ef and slightly increased at higher binding energies , which can be explained by an energy broadening of the electronic states owing to reduced structural order . with higher annealing temperatures
ups is a surface sensitive method and thus the results can not be directly associated with electronic bulk band structure properties .
however , as will be shown below , band structure based calculations of photoemission spectra provide this link . as additional experimental input for such calculations , a comparison of spin - integrated ex situ haxpes with a photon energy of 6  kev of alox capped ( oxidation protection ) co2mnsi thin films and spin - integrated in situ ups ( uncapped films ) was carried out . owing to the increased information depth of haxpes , true surface states are typically not observed by this method . as shown in fig .
4 , the in situ spin - integrated ups and the haxpes results fundamentally agree although the information depth of both experiments varies from 2  nm to 20  nm . this provides evidence that true surface states like shockley or tamm states , which are mainly located at the first atomic layer30 , do not contribute to the ups data . we calculated the spin resolved bulk dos of co2mnsi using the spin polarized relativistic korringa  kohn  rostoker ( spr - kkr ) green function method implemented in the munich spr - kkr band structure programme package employing the perdew 
ernzerhof functional32 shifts the upper edge to higher energies , but leaves the lower edge almost unchanged . for a comparison of our experimental data with ups- and haxpes calculations this electronic structure provides the basis for a one - step model of photoemission , which includes all matrix - element effects , multiple scattering in the initial and final states33 , and all surface - related effects in the excitation process .
we used a recently developed relativistic generalization for excitation energies ranging from about 10  ev to more than 10  kev ( ref .
34 ) realized in the full spin - density matrix formulation for the photocurrent35 . in fig .
4 the calculations and the experimental spin - integrated ups and haxpes results are compared . nearly quantitative agreement for both ,
uv and hard x - ray photon energies , is obtained . particularly with regard to the small dos just below the fermi energy
the agreement of the calculations with the high ups and haxpes intensities in this energy range is remarkable and is traced back to a bulk - like surface resonance as will be discussed below .
the obtained agreement between the spin - integrated ups / haxpes experiments and calculations based on a half metallic bulk band structure represents already evidence for half - metallicity .
additional strong evidence is provided by the analysis of the srups data . for the surface region we can estimate the position of the lower band edge of the minority gap directly from the experimental data by taking the maximum of the derivative of the minority spin intensity with respect to the energy , which is found at eef 500  mev . from previous surface sensitive x - ray magnetic circular dichroism experiments we estimated the position of the upper band edge to be at eef+400  mev ( ref .
5 the highest experimentally obtained spin polarization is shown together with the spin polarization derived directly from the calculated dos , the calculated photoemission asymmetry including all broadening effects considering bulk contributions only , and the calculated photoemission asymmetry including surface - related effects .
the correspondence between the dos and calculated pure bulk - like ups spectrum becomes clear , if the influence of intrinsic life time broadening owing to electronic correlations and included experimental energy resolution ( e=400  mev ) is considered .
it is obvious that these broadening effects within the bulk calculations reduce the expected ups spin polarization although the dos is half - metallic . however
true surface states contribute to the layer - resolved photocurrent with an intensity distribution that is nonzero for the first atomic layer only .
consequently , their contribution to the total spectral weight decreases with increasing number of layers generating the photocurrent .
thus in general with increasing photon energies the combined effect of energy - dependent cross - sections and larger inelastic mean free path results in a reduced weight of surface state photoemission .
however , the situation is very different for co2mnsi , where we identified in our calculations a resonance on the ( 001)-surface , which is embedded in the bulk continuum with a strong coupling to the majority bulk states . in our case
this surface resonance extends over the first six atomic layers , which is similar to the case of w(110 ) , where we found a surface resonance revealing a considerable bulk contribution35 as well .
the spectral weight of this surface resonance is much larger than that of a true surface state resulting in a significant contribution to the total intensity even at hard x - ray energies .
co2mnsi samples were prepared and investigated completely in situ in an ultrahigh vacuum cluster consisting of sputtering chambers , an molecular beam epitaxy ( mbe ) chamber , and a srups chamber equipped with a he gas discharge lamp ( h=21.2  ev ) and a hemispherical energy analyzer with multi - channel spin filter27 ( energy resolution 400  mev , sherman function s=0.420.05 ( ref .
first , an epitaxial buffer layer of the heusler compound co2mnga ( 30  nm ) was grown on the mgo(100 ) substrate by radio frequency ( rf)-sputtering at room temperature . by an optimized additional annealing process at 550  c l21 order
is obtained as shown by high energy electron diffraction ( rheed ) and x - ray diffraction ( xrd ) .
. induced by the buffer layer the co2mnsi thin films show already some degree of l21 surface order as deposited . by
additional annealing the order is improved as demonstrated for the film surface by rheed ( fig .
a low annealing temperature of ta=300c results in a significantly increased intensity of the characteristic rheed l21 superstructure peaks .
however , by xrd no ( 111 ) peak , which is indicative for l21 order , is observed for ta<400  c .
this suggests that l21 order is present at the film surface , but not in the bulk of the thin film . for ta400  c the ( 111 ) peak appears in xrd . for ta500  c
some ga from the buffer layer is observed by core - level haxpes to have diffused to the co2mnsi surface .
the magnetic moments of all samples amount to 5  b per formula unit at 4  k and is reduced by 3% at room temperature , in agreement with theoretical predictions and experimental values measured on bulk samples29 .
figure 2 shows in situ ups spectra of co2mnsi thin films annealed at different temperatures ta without spin analysis .
the large acceptance angle of the spectrometer ( 10 ) and applied sample bias voltage of 10  v result in k|| values which cover the complete brillouin zone .
the spectra of all samples are almost identical , only the broad hump at eef=2,900  mev vanishes and the peak at eef=1,150  mev is slightly broadened for the deposited and the ta=550  c sample . however , by spin analysis clear differences between the samples are revealed .
figure 3 shows the spin polarization of mgo / co2mnga(30  nm)/co2mnsi(70  nm ) thin films annealed at different temperatures ta as measured by srups .
a huge room temperature spin polarization of 9093% at the fermi energy at room temperature was obtained for samples annealed between 300  c and 450  c . in combination with the ups calculations discussed below
, these exceptionally high values are the first direct observation of half - metallicity in the surface region of any heusler compound , which provide strong evidence for 100% spin polarization in the bulk of the thin films . with lower annealing temperatures
the spin polarization is reduced at ef and slightly increased at higher binding energies , which can be explained by an energy broadening of the electronic states owing to reduced structural order . with higher annealing temperatures
ups is a surface sensitive method and thus the results can not be directly associated with electronic bulk band structure properties .
however , as will be shown below , band structure based calculations of photoemission spectra provide this link .
as additional experimental input for such calculations , a comparison of spin - integrated ex situ haxpes with a photon energy of 6  kev of alox capped ( oxidation protection ) co2mnsi thin films and spin - integrated in situ ups ( uncapped films ) was carried out .
owing to the increased information depth of haxpes , true surface states are typically not observed by this method . as shown in fig .
4 , the in situ spin - integrated ups and the haxpes results fundamentally agree although the information depth of both experiments varies from 2  nm to 20  nm . this provides evidence that true surface states like shockley or tamm states , which are mainly located at the first atomic layer30 , do not contribute to the ups data .
we calculated the spin resolved bulk dos of co2mnsi using the spin polarized relativistic korringa  kohn  rostoker ( spr - kkr ) green function method implemented in the munich spr - kkr band structure programme package employing the perdew 
ernzerhof functional32 shifts the upper edge to higher energies , but leaves the lower edge almost unchanged . for a comparison of our experimental data with ups- and haxpes calculations this electronic structure provides the basis for a one - step model of photoemission , which includes all matrix - element effects , multiple scattering in the initial and final states33 , and all surface - related effects in the excitation process .
we used a recently developed relativistic generalization for excitation energies ranging from about 10  ev to more than 10  kev ( ref .
34 ) realized in the full spin - density matrix formulation for the photocurrent35 . in fig .
4 the calculations and the experimental spin - integrated ups and haxpes results are compared . nearly quantitative agreement for both ,
uv and hard x - ray photon energies , is obtained . particularly with regard to the small dos just below the fermi energy
the agreement of the calculations with the high ups and haxpes intensities in this energy range is remarkable and is traced back to a bulk - like surface resonance as will be discussed below .
the obtained agreement between the spin - integrated ups / haxpes experiments and calculations based on a half metallic bulk band structure represents already evidence for half - metallicity .
additional strong evidence is provided by the analysis of the srups data . for the surface region
we can estimate the position of the lower band edge of the minority gap directly from the experimental data by taking the maximum of the derivative of the minority spin intensity with respect to the energy , which is found at eef 500  mev . from previous surface sensitive x - ray magnetic circular dichroism experiments we estimated the position of the upper band edge to be at eef+400  mev ( ref .
5 the highest experimentally obtained spin polarization is shown together with the spin polarization derived directly from the calculated dos , the calculated photoemission asymmetry including all broadening effects considering bulk contributions only , and the calculated photoemission asymmetry including surface - related effects .
the correspondence between the dos and calculated pure bulk - like ups spectrum becomes clear , if the influence of intrinsic life time broadening owing to electronic correlations and included experimental energy resolution ( e=400  mev ) is considered .
it is obvious that these broadening effects within the bulk calculations reduce the expected ups spin polarization although the dos is half - metallic .
true surface states contribute to the layer - resolved photocurrent with an intensity distribution that is nonzero for the first atomic layer only .
consequently , their contribution to the total spectral weight decreases with increasing number of layers generating the photocurrent .
thus in general with increasing photon energies the combined effect of energy - dependent cross - sections and larger inelastic mean free path results in a reduced weight of surface state photoemission . however , the situation is very different for co2mnsi , where we identified in our calculations a resonance on the ( 001)-surface , which is embedded in the bulk continuum with a strong coupling to the majority bulk states . in our case
this surface resonance extends over the first six atomic layers , which is similar to the case of w(110 ) , where we found a surface resonance revealing a considerable bulk contribution35 as well .
the spectral weight of this surface resonance is much larger than that of a true surface state resulting in a significant contribution to the total intensity even at hard x - ray energies .
as shown in fig . 5 , the inclusion of the complete surface - related photoexcitation in the ups calculation results in perfect agreement with the experiment .
if the surface resonance were not present , half - metallic behaviour would persist but the finite experimental resolution in photoemission would hinder the observation of a high spin polarization . because the surface resonance is strongly coupled to the band structure of the bulk , this provides evidence for the validity of our calculated half metallic bulk band structure of co2mnsi . and ,
from the spintronics applications point of view it is the room temperature spin polarization in the thin film surface region , which is relevant . in conclusion , investigating optimized thin films of the compound co2mnsi by in situ srups , we were able to demonstrate for the first time half - metallicity in combination with directly measured ( ) % spin polarization at room temperature in the surface region of a heusler thin film .
novel band structure and photoemission calculations including all surface - related effects show that the observation of a high spin polarization in a wide energy range below the fermi energy is related to a stable surface resonance in the majority band of co2mnsi extending deep into the bulk of the material .
our results show that careful thin film preparation can indeed result in a high spin polarization with a sufficient degree of stability in a surface region of several atomic layers .
in particular it shows that the observed tunnelling magnetoresistance values are not limited by the intrinsic spin polarization of the heusler alloy and that potentially much larger values can be obtained by carefully optimized growth .
fundamentally our observation paves the way for most powerful future spintronic devices on the basis of heusler materials .
m.j . initiated and coordinated the project and wrote the paper . a.k . and m.j
 ferromagnetic thin films of heusler compounds are highly relevant for spintronic applications owing to their predicted half - metallicity , that is , 100% spin polarization at the fermi energy . however , experimental evidence for this property is scarce . 
 here we investigate epitaxial thin films of the compound co2mnsi in situ by ultraviolet - photoemission spectroscopy , taking advantage of a novel multi - channel spin filter . by this surface sensitive method , 
 an exceptionally large spin polarization of ( ) % at room temperature is observed directly . as a more bulk sensitive method , additional ex situ 
 spin - integrated high energy x - ray photoemission spectroscopy experiments are performed . 
 all experimental results are compared with advanced band structure and photoemission calculations which include surface effects . 
 excellent agreement is obtained with calculations , which show a highly spin polarized bulk - like surface resonance ingrained in a half metallic bulk band structure . 
Results
Co
Photoemission spectroscopy experiments
Bulk DOS and photoemission calculations
Discussion
Author contributions
Additional information