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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 44: Surface Magnetism (Joint Session with O) - Adatoms on surfaces
MA 44.1: Talk
Thursday, March 19, 2015, 15:00–15:15, H 0110
Magnetism of Ho and Er Atoms on Close-Packed Metal Surfaces — •Fabio Donati1, Aparajita Singha1, Sebastian Stepanow2, Christan Wäckerlin1, Jan Dreiser1,3, Pietro Gambardella2, Stefano Rusponi1, and Harald Brune1 — 1Institute of Condensed Matter Physics (ICMP), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland — 2Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, Switzerland — 3Swiss Light Source (SLS), Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Switzerland
Single atoms on a surface represent a paradigm for investigating the ultimate size limit of nanomagnets. By combining x-ray magnetic circular dichroism measurements with multiplet calculations, we performed a comparative study of the ground state and magnetic anisotropy of single Ho and Er atoms on Pt(111) and Cu(111). Our results emphasize the different interaction of the 4f orbitals with the substrate electrons, showing that the s- or d- character of the substrate states plays a major role in determining the hierarchy of the magnetic quantum states [Donati et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., in press]. In particular, Er atoms display a rotation of the magnetization easy axis from out-of-plane on Pt(111) to in-plane on Cu(111), whereas Ho atoms on Pt(111) present a ground state that is incompatible with the long spin relaxation times reported by a recent scanning tunneling microscopy study of the same system [Miyamachi et al., Nature 503, 242 (2013)].