  We investigate the suitability of nearly half-metallic ferrimagnetic
quaternary Heusler alloys, CoCrMnZ (Z=Al, Ga, Si, Ge) to assess the feasibility
as electrode materials of MgO-based magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ). Low
magnetic moments of these alloys originated from the anti-ferromagnetic
coupling between Mn and Cr spins ensure a negligible stray field in spintronics
devices as well as a lower switching current required to flip their spin
direction. We confirmed mechanical stability of these materials from the
evaluated values of elastic constants, and the absence of any imaginary
frequency in their phonon dispersion curves. The influence of swapping
disorders on the electronic structures and their relative stability are also
discussed. A high spin polarization of the conduction electrons are observed in
case of CoCrMnZ/MgO hetrojunctions, independent of terminations at the
interface. Based on our ballistic transport calculations, a large coherent
tunnelling of the majority-spin $s$-like $\Delta_1$ states can be expected
through MgO-barrier. The calculated tunnelling magnetoresistance (TMR) ratios
are in the order of 1000\%. A very high Curie temperatures specifically for
CoCrMnAl and CoCrMnGa, which are comparable to $bcc$ Co, could also yield a
weaker temperature dependece of TMR ratios for CoCrMnAl/MgO/CoCrMnAl (001) and
CoCrMnGa/MgO/CoCrMnGa (001) MTJ.
