Dresden 2017 – scientific programme
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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik
O 92: Gerhard Ertl Young Investigator Award
O 92.1: Talk
Thursday, March 23, 2017, 10:30–11:00, TRE Ma
Controlling the magnetic state of individual single atom magnets — •Fabian D. Natterer1,2, Kai Yang1,3, William Paul1, Philip Wilke1,4, Taeyoung Choi1, Thomas Greber1,5, Andreas J. Heinrich1,6, and Christopher P. Lutz1 — 1IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, USA — 2EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland — 3University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China — 4University of Göttingen, Germany — 5University of Zürich, Switzerland — 6Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
The possibility of data storage in single atom magnets represents the natural limits of a thought experiment for miniaturization in magnetic storage media. Up to now, the magnetic bit size was reduced to clusters containing few atoms, but a recent investigation showing magnetic remanence in ensembles of single holmium atoms on magnesium oxide (MgO) presented the prospect of data storage at the atomic limit. However, it was unclear how the magnetic state of a selected rare earth magnet could be controlled. We demonstrate here the reading and writing of individual Ho atoms on MgO. The Ho atoms independently retain their magnetic state over several hours. A selected Ho bit is read by tunnel magnetoresistance and written by current pulses using a scanning tunneling microscope. Using STM enabled electron spin resonance, we unambiguously prove the magnetic origin of the Ho states and reveal a large Ho magnetic moment of (10.1±0.1) µB. The long lifetime of the magnetic state, combined with electrical reading and writing shows that the programming of single atom magnets is possible.