Effect of short range ordering on the magnetism in disordered Fe:Al alloy

• Effect of short-ranged ordering in disordered FeAl has been studied both experimentally and theoretically.
• Magnetic exchange interaction has been calculated from first-principles theories.
• Subtle effect of structural inhomogeneity on low temperature magnetism has been highlighted.

Magnetic behavior of equiatomic FeAl alloy is still not satisfactorily understood. In this work, we studied the magnetic properties of disordered FeAl alloy both experimentally and using first-principles theories and revisited the alloy system in perspective of the inhomogeneity present in the system. After obtaining magnetic exchange interactions from first-principles theories, we carried out Monte-Carlo simulations on special quasi-random structures (SQS) and compared the results with experimental measurements. We tried to understand the plethora of often differing results and explain them in terms of possible inhomogeneities in the system.