Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen

TT 40: Electronic Structure of Magnetism, Micromagnetism, Computational Magnetism (organized by MA)

TT 40.1: Talk

Tuesday, March 17, 2015, 09:30–09:45, H 0112

Spin-orbit coupling effects on spin-dependent inelastic electronic lifetimes in ferromagnets — •Dennis Nenno, Steffen Kaltenborn, and Hans Christian Schneider — Physics Department and Research Center OPTIMAS, University of Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern

We present results for spin-dependent inelastic electronic lifetimes in the 3d ferromagnets iron, cobalt, and nickel due to carrier-carrier Coulomb interactions including spin-orbit coupling in the band structure and in the wave functions. Including the spin-orbit interaction in the electronic wave functions presents an important step towards the resolution of a long standing discrepancy between theoretical and experimental results for spin-dependent electronic lifetimes. This subject has recently received renewed attention due to its importance for hot-electron spin transport [1]. Our approach is based on density functional theory and an accurately determined dielectric function [2]. With this numerical framework we find that the spin-dependent density of states at the Fermi energy does not, in general, determine the spin dependence of the lifetimes because of the effective spin-flip transitions allowed by the spin mixing [3]. Thus, the majority and minority electron lifetimes computed including spin-orbit coupling for these three 3d ferromagnets do not differ by more than a factor of 2, and agree with experimental results.

[1] M. Battiato, K. Carva, and P. M. Oppeneer, PRB 86, 024404 (2012). [2] S. Kaltenborn and H. C. Schneider, PRB 88, 045124 (2013). [3] S. Kaltenborn and H. C. Schneider, PRB 90, 201104(R) (2014).