Electronic structure and magnetic properties of solids

Magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy for adatoms and monolayers on non-magnetic substrates: where does it come from?

The substrate contribution to the magnetic anisotropy energy (MAE) of supported nanostructures can be assessed by a site-selective manipulation of the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and of the effective exchange field Bex. A systematic study of Co adatoms and Co monolayers on the (1 1 1) surfaces of Cu, Ag, Au, Pd and Pt is performed to study common trends in this class of materials. It is found that for adatoms, the influence of the substrate SOC and Bex is relatively small (10-30% of the MAE) while for monolayers, this influence can be substantial. The influence of the substrate SOC is much more important than the influence of the substrate Bex, except for highly polarizable substrates with a strong SOC (such as Pt). The substrate always promotes the tendency to an out-of-plane orientation of the easy magnetic axis for all the investigated systems.

Calculation of magnetic exchange interactions in Mott-Hubbard systems

An efficient method of computing magnetic exchange interactions in systems with strong correlations is introduced. It is based on a magnetic force theorem that evaluates linear response due to rotations of magnetic moments and uses a generalized spectral density functional framework allowing us to explore several approximations ranging from local density functional to exact diagonalization based dynamical mean field theory. Applications to spin waves and magnetic transition temperatures of 3d metal mono-oxides as well as high-T(c) superconductors are in good agreement with experiment.