Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme
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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik
O 28: Surface or interface magnetism
O 28.7: Talk
Tuesday, March 23, 2010, 12:00–12:15, H48
Switching a single spin on metal surfaces: ab initio studies — •Kun Tao1, Valeri.S Stepanyuk1, Wolfram Hergert2, Ivan Rungger3, Stefano Sanvito3, and Patrick Bruno4 — 1Max-Planck-Institute of Microstructure Physics, Halle, Germany — 2Fachbereich Physik, Martin-Luther-University, Halle-Wittenberg, Friedemann-Bach-Platz 6, D-06099 Halle, Germany — 3School of Physics and CRANN, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland — 4European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, F-38043 Grenoble Cedex, France
We perform ab initio calculations of the the exchange coupling between single magnetic adatoms adsorbed on metal surfaces and a spin polarized STM tip. We apply density functional theory (DFT) based methods and perform calculations in the fully relaxed geometries for the tip and the substrate. We demonstrate that the spin direction of single adatoms can be controlled by varying the tip-substrate distance. The sign of the exchange energy is determined by the competition of the direct and the indirect interactions between the tip and the adatom[1]. Based the nonequilibrium Green function method, we perform the spin-dependent transport calculations and find a large magnetoresistance of the junction at short tip-substrate distances.
[1] Kun Tao, V.S. Stepanyuk, W. Herget, I. Rungger, S. Sanvito, P. Bruno, Phys. Rev. Lett 103, 057202 (2009)