  The discovery of materials with improved functionality can be accelerated by
rational material design. Heusler compounds with tunable magnetic sublattices
allow to implement this concept to achieve novel magnetic properties. Here, we
have designed a family of Heusler alloys with a compensated ferrimagnetic
state. In the vicinity of the compensation composition in Mn-Pt-Ga, a giant
exchange bias (EB) of more than 3 T and a similarly large coercivity are
established. The large exchange anisotropy originates from the exchange
interaction between the compensated host and ferrimagnetic clusters that arise
from intrinsic anti-site disorder. We demonstrate the applicability of our
design concept on a second material, Mn-Fe-Ga, with a magnetic transition above
room temperature, exemplifying the universality of the concept and the
feasibility of room-temperature applications. Our study points to a new
direction for novel magneto-electronic devices. At the same time it suggests a
new route for realizing rare-earth free exchange-biased hard magnets, where the
second quadrant magnetization can be stabilized by the exchange bias.
