High quality thin films of the ferromagnetic semiconductor EuO have been prepared and were studied using a new form of spin-resolved spectroscopy. We observed large changes in the electronic structure across the Curie and metal-insulator transition temperature. We found that these are caused by the exchange splitting of the conduction band in the ferromagnetic state, which is as large as 0.6 eV. We also present strong evidence that the bottom of the conduction band consists mainly of majority spins. This implies that doped charge carriers in EuO are practically fully spin polarized.
Magnetism of transition metal (TM) oxides is usually described in terms of the Heisenberg model, with orientation-independent interactions between the spins. However, the applicability of such a model is not fully justified for TM oxides because spin polarization of oxygen is usually ignored. In the conventional model based on the Anderson principle, oxygen effects are considered as a property of the TM ion and only TM interactions are relevant. Here, we perform a systematic comparison between two approaches for spin polarization on oxygen in typical TM oxides. To this end, we calculate the exchange interactions in NiO, MnO, and hematite (Fe2O3) for different magnetic configurations using the magnetic force theorem. We consider the full spin Hamiltonian including oxygen sites, and also derive an effective model where the spin polarization on oxygen renormalizes the exchange interactions between TM sites. Surprisingly, the exchange interactions in NiO depend on the magnetic state if spin polarization on oxygen is neglected, resulting in non-Heisenberg behavior. In contrast, the inclusion of spin polarization in NiO makes the Heisenberg model more applicable. Just the opposite, MnO behaves as a Heisenberg magnet when oxygen spin polarization is neglected, but shows strong non-Heisenberg effects when spin polarization on oxygen is included. In hematite, both models result in non-Heisenberg behavior. General applicability of the magnetic force theorem as well as the Heisenberg model to TM oxides is discussed.
The electronic structure of the ferromagnetic semiconductor EuO is investigated by means of spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and density functional theory. Our spin-resolved data reveals that, while the macroscopic magnetization of the sample vanishes at the Curie temperature $T_C$, the experimentally-determined exchange splitting of the O 2$p$ band persists at least up to $T_{C}$ if the picture of fluctuating spin-blocks is assumed. We discuss possible temperature-related spectral changes by analyzing ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic phases, directional effect due to spin orbit coupling, as well as effects due to sample aging. Our calculations with a Hubbard $U$ term reveal a complex nature of the local exchange splitting on the oxygen site and in conduction bands, shining a new light on the interpretation of previous optical and photoemission spectroscopic results.
The transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) $1T$-TaS$_{2}$ exhibits a rich set of charge density wave (CDW) orders. Recent investigations suggested that using light or electric field can manipulate the commensurate (C) CDW ground state. Such manipulations are considered to be determined by the charge carrier doping. Here we simulate by first-principles calculations the carrier doping effect on CCDW in $1T$-TaS$_{2}$. We investigate the charge doping effects on the electronic structures and phonon instabilities of $1T$ structure and analyze the doping induced energy and distortion ratio variations in CCDW structure. We found that both in bulk and monolayer $1T$-TaS$_{2}$, CCDW is stable upon electron doping, while hole doping can significantly suppress the CCDW, implying different mechanisms of such reported manipulations. Light or positive perpendicular electric field induced hole doping increases the energy of CCDW, so that the system transforms to NCCDW or similar metastable state. On the other hand, even the CCDW distortion is more stable upon in-plain electric field induced electron injection, some accompanied effects can drive the system to cross over the energy barrier from CCDW to nearly commensurate (NC) CDW or similar metastable state. We also estimate that hole doping can introduce potential superconductivity with $T_{c}$ of $6sim7$ K. Controllable switching of different states such as CCDW/Mott insulating state, metallic state, and even the superconducting state can be realized in $1T$-TaS$_{2}$, which makes the novel material have very promising applications in the future electronic devices.
We present a comprehensive study of the magnetic exchange Hamiltonian of elemental Gadolinium. We use neutron scattering to measure the magnon spectrum over the entire Brillouin zone, and fit the excitations to a spin wave model to extract the first 30 nearest neighbor magnetic exchange interactions with rigorously defined uncertainty. We find these exchange interactions to follow RKKY behavior, oscillating from ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic as a function of distance. Finally, we discuss the topological features and degeneracies in Gd, and HCP ferromagnets in general. We show theoretically how, with asymmetric exchange, topological properties could be tuned with a magnetic field.
We have investigated possible spin and charge ordered states in 3d transition-metal oxides with small or negative charge-transfer energy, which can be regarded as self-doped Mott insulators, using Hartree-Fock calculations on d-p-type lattice models. It was found that an antiferromagnetic state with charge ordering in oxygen 2p orbitals is favored for relatively large charge-transfer energy and may be relevant for PrNiO$_3$ and NdNiO$_3$. On the other hand, an antiferromagnetic state with charge ordering in transition-metal 3$d$ orbitals tends to be stable for highly negative charge-transfer energy and can be stabilized by the breathing-type lattice distortion; this is probably realized in YNiO$_3$.