Regensburg 2016 – scientific programme

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MM: Fachverband Metall- und Materialphysik

MM 25: Frontiers of Electronic Structure Theory: Focus on Topology and Transport I

MM 25.4: Talk

Tuesday, March 8, 2016, 15:00–15:15, H24

Spin and orbital magnetism of Rashba electrons induced by magnetic nanostructures — •Juba Bouaziz, Manuel dos Santos Dias, Phivos Mavropoulos, Stefan Blügel, and Samir Lounis — Peter Grünberg Institut and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich and JARA, D-52425 Jülich, Germany

We explore theoretically the spin and orbital magnetism of Rashba electrons in the presence of noncollinear impurity-induced magnetic states. The Rashba electron gas mediates the Dzyaloshinksii-Moriya interaction between magnetic impurities favoring chiral states [1]. Here we investigate the back-action of such noncollinear magnetic states on the Rashba electron gas. The presence and distribution of ground state spin and orbital currents is analyzed. Surprisingly, when switching off the spin-orbit coupling, chiral magnetic textures generate bound currents, which implies the existence of orbital magnetic moments originating solely from the peculiar topology of the impurities magnetic moments. In the particular case of a single adatom with an out of plane magnetic moment, we found circular currents flowing around the magnetic impurity in agreement with the continuity equation for the electric charge. Similar results were predicted for magnetic adatoms on superconductor surfaces with a finite spin-orbit coupling [2].

[1] J. Bouaziz et al. in preparation.
[2] S. S. Pershoguba et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 116602 (2015).
This work is supported by the HGF-YIG Programme VH-NG-717 (Functional Nanoscale Structure and Probe Simulation Laboratory).