Heusler compounds are remarkable class of materials that have attracted much attention due to the multiple functional properties that makes them promising “smart” materials for technological applications in Hall sensors, spintronics and quantum information. In addition, from the point of view of basic science this class of materials presents several exotic physical phenomena, such as shape memory, barocaloric effects, topological phases, giant magnetoresistance, unconventional superconductors and Anomalous Hall Effect. The exotic behaviors present in this family of compounds rely on the coupling between structural and magnetic transitions. The tuneability and controllability of the properties makes this material class the ideal system for the design of artificial multifunctional material on an atomic scale which allows switchable functionalities via external control by fields, temperature, pressure or other physical quantities.

Applying pressure is known to be a powerful approach to tune the electronic and crystalline structure of a material, and therefore it can be a useful tool to study the relationship of magnetism and crystal structure without introducing additional disorder in the structure. In this work we use hydrostatic pressure (up to 10 GPa) to tune the structural properties of the Ni₅₀Mn₃₅In₁₅ Heusler compounds and then to verify the effects of the lattice contraction on their magnetic properties. By a combination of magnetization, and X-ray diffraction experiments as function of temperature e pressure we demonstrate that the distance between the Mn atoms is the main parameter that regulates the magnetic properties of this material. The complete description of the magnetic and structural changes as a function of pressure should guide efforts in understanding the behavior of similar Heusler materials under lattice contraction.