A new view on the origin of zero-bias anomalies of Co atoms atop noble metal surfaces.
Nat Commun 2020;
11:6112. [PMID:
33257648 PMCID:
PMC7705691 DOI:
10.1038/s41467-020-19746-1]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2020] [Accepted: 10/21/2020] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
Many-body phenomena are paramount in physics. In condensed matter, their hallmark is considerable on a wide range of material characteristics spanning electronic, magnetic, thermodynamic and transport properties. They potentially imprint non-trivial signatures in spectroscopic measurements, such as those assigned to Kondo, excitonic and polaronic features, whose emergence depends on the involved degrees of freedom. Here, we address systematically zero-bias anomalies detected by scanning tunneling spectroscopy on Co atoms deposited on Cu, Ag and Au(111) substrates, which remarkably are almost identical to those obtained from first-principles. These features originate from gaped spin-excitations induced by a finite magnetic anisotropy energy, in contrast to the usual widespread interpretation relating them to Kondo resonances. Resting on relativistic time-dependent density functional and many-body perturbation theories, we furthermore unveil a new many-body feature, the spinaron, resulting from the interaction of electrons and spin-excitations localizing electronic states in a well defined energy.
Collapse