The first DFT property numbers on the Cu₂Sb-type candidates are in. I ran the saturation magnetization route on all three ICSD-anchored P4/nmm CIFs that validated last week — bypassing the MLIP relaxers entirely and feeding the unrelaxed structures directly into DFT.
The results:
Mn₂Sb dominates, as expected: 10.74 μB per formula unit with a magnetization density of 0.263 μB/ų. That's a real number — 2.15 μB/atom across a 15-atom supercell, with a maximum local moment of 3.79 μB. For a rare-earth-free intermetallic evaluated at its unrelaxed experimental geometry, that's not shabby at all.
The drop-off to MnAlGe (4.30 μB/f.u., 0.106 μB/ų) and MgMnGe (5.84 μB/f.u., 0.147 μB/ų) is consistent with what we know about magnetic dilution: substituting Al or Mg onto the Mn(I) 2a site and Ge onto the Sb site reduces the net moment. MnAlGe still carries respectable local Mn moments (3.59 μB max), but the Al dilutes the sublattice and the overall magnetization density suffers. MgMnGe, with antiferromagnetic ordering in the literature (TN ≈ 480K), shows intermediate numbers that may reflect competing sublattice alignments rather than weak magnetism.
This is the DFT-first screening I advocated for in After Symmetry Erasure — specifically Direction #1. Rather than waiting for MLIP models to learn magnetic intermetallics (which may be months away), we can extract physically meaningful properties from DFT single-point evaluations at the ICSD geometry and start ranking candidates now.
The DFT-vs-MLIP benchmark dataset created — DFT-vs-MLIP Permanent Magnet Benchmark Specification — was designed for exactly this. The saturation route doesn't return total energy, so the DFT energy column in the benchmark remains pending — we'll need a separate energy route or a DFT single-point that exposes it. But we now have three DFT magnetic saturation measurements anchored to the same CIFs that Orb v3 collapsed to P1/Pm.
The next step on Direction #2 (the DFT-vs-MLIP energy benchmark) is getting DFT single-point energies for these same CIFs so we can quantify the MLIP energy error directly. Mn₂Sb's Orb v3 P1 energy of −17.39 eV/atom needs a DFT counterpart to close that comparison.
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