Novel database driven method for discovering new Co-based ferromagnets*

Magnetic elements are rare, and the best way to predict novel magnetic materials is to constrain a search to analyzing the magnetic properties of compounds containing magnetic elements such as rare-earth elements, iron, cobalt, or manganese. While many databases exist for the purposes of analyzing structural properties of compounds, databases of magnetic materials are either outdated or incomplete. The magnetic properties of 13,796 compounds containing the element cobalt have been gathered through a literature search, with the goal to complete the entire list or Co compounds. A total of 1,389 ferromagnetic compounds have been found and catalogued. Structure types, lattice parameters, cobalt percentage, and lattice angles of each compound were also collected; the shortest cobalt-cobalt bond lengths within the crystal lattice were calculated; and data trends were analyzed to predict novel ferromagnetic and anisotropic compounds. From this data, we illustrate how we discovered new ferromagnets with Curie temperature above room temperature, and uniaxial anisotropy.