Dresden 2014 – scientific programme
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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 53: Spin Structures at Surfaces and in thin films II
MA 53.3: Talk
Friday, April 4, 2014, 10:00–10:15, BEY 118
Unexpected behaviour of the magnetocrystalline anisotropy of adatoms as a function of the spin orbit coupling — •Ondřej Šipr1, Sven Bornemann2, Sergey Mankovsky2, Hubert Ebert2, and Ján Minár2 — 1Institute of Physics of the ASCR, Praha, Czech Republic — 2Universität München, München, Germany
The origin of magneto-crystalline anisotropy in various 3D solids, in 2D ultra-thin films, as well as in 0D magnetic clusters, was discussed in the literature by many authors who demonstrated that for uniaxial systems its dependence on the strength of the spin orbit coupling (SOC) is quadratic. This property is the result of small magnitude of SOC energy when compared to the electron band width of such systems, which allows to account for its contribution within the second order perturbation theory.
However, the situation can be different in the case of single atoms deposited on a surface. We demonstrate by the ab-initio electronic structure calculations that for 3d transition metal adatoms on Au(111) the dependence of the magneto-crystalline anisotropy energy on the SOC becomes quite complicated and it is rather linear than quadratic for realistic SOC values. This feature can be attributed to the very narrow electronic bands associated with the adatoms being comparable to the SOC-induced changes upon the rotation of the magnetization direction.