Origin of the Giant Negative Thermal Expansion in Mn₃(Cu_0.5Ge_0.5)N

Figure 3

(a) The energies of the considered magnetic configurations as a function of the lattice constant forMn₃(Cu_0.5Ge_0.5)N. The solid line represents the energy curve of Γ^5𝑔 and the dashed lines represent the energy curves of the magnetic metastable configurations. (b) The energies as a function of the lattice constant for the distorted Γ^5𝑔 configurations (dashed lines) and the perfect Γ^5𝑔 configuration (solid line). The energy at the equilibrium volume of the Γ^5𝑔 configuration is taken as a reference.

(a)

(b)