No Arabic abstract
We calculate magnetic anisotropy energy of Fe and Ni by taking into account the effects of strong electronic correlations, spin-orbit coupling, and non-collinearity of intra-atomic magnetization. The LDA+U method is used and its equivalence to dynamical mean-field theory in the static limit is derived. The effects of strong correlations are studied along several paths in $(U,J)$ parameter space. Both experimental magnitude of MAE and direction of magnetization are predicted correctly near $U=1.9 eV$, $J=1.2 eV$ for Ni and $U=1.2 eV$, $J=0.8 eV$ for Fe. The modified one-electron spectra by strong correlations are emphasized in conjunction with magnetic anisotropy.
Substantial amounts of the transition metals Mn, Fe, Co, and Ni can be substituted for Li in single crystalline Li$_2$(Li$_{1-x}T_x$)N. Isothermal and temperature-dependent magnetization measurements reveal local magnetic moments with magnitudes significantly exceeding the spin-only value. The additional contributions stem from unquenched orbital moments that lead to rare-earth-like behavior of the magnetic properties. Accordingly, extremely large magnetic anisotropies have been found. Most notably, the magnetic anisotropy alternates as easy-plane $rightarrow$ easy-axis $rightarrow$ easy-plane $rightarrow$ easy-axis when progressing from $T$ = Mn $rightarrow$ Fe $rightarrow$ Co $rightarrow$ Ni. This behavior can be understood based on a perturbation approach in an analytical, single-ion model. The calculated magnetic anisotropies show a surprisingly good agreement with the experiment and capture the basic features observed for the different transition metals.
Titanium disulfide TiS$_2$, which is a member of the layered transition-metal dichalcogenides with the 1T-CdI$_2$-type crystal structure, is known to exhibit a wide variety of magnetism through intercalating various kinds of transition-metal atoms of different concentrations. Among them, Fe-intercalated titanium disulfide Fe$_x$TiS$_2$ is known to be ferromagnetic with strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) and large coercive fields ($H_text{c}$). In order to study the microscopic origin of the magnetism of this compound, we have performed X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurements on single crystals of heavily intercalated Fe$_x$TiS$_2$ ($xsim0.5$). The grown single crystals showed a strong PMA with a large $H_text{c}$ of $mu_0H_text{c} simeq 1.0 text{T}$. XAS and XMCD spectra showed that Fe is fully in the valence states of 2+ and that Ti is in an itinerant electronic state, indicating electron transfer from the intercalated Fe atoms to the host TiS$_2$ bands. The Fe$^{2+}$ ions were shown to have a large orbital magnetic moment of $simeq 0.59 mu_text{B}text{/Fe}$, to which, combined with the spin-orbit interaction and the trigonal crystal field, we attribute the strong magnetic anisotropy of Fe$_x$TiS$_2$.
Directly measuring elementary electronic excitations in dopant $3d$ metals is essential to understanding how they function as part of their host material. Through calculated crystal field splittings of the $3d$ electron band it is shown how transition metals Mn, Fe, Co, and Ni are incorporated into SnO$_2$. The crystal field splittings are compared to resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) experiments, which measure precisely these elementary $dd$ excitations. The origin of spectral features can be determined and identified via this comparison, leading to an increased understanding of how such dopant metals situate themselves in, and modify the hosts electronic and magnetic properties; and also how each element differs when incorporated into other semiconducting materials. We found that oxygen vacancy formation must not occur at nearest neighbour sites to metal atoms, but instead must reside at least two coordination spheres beyond. The coordination of the dopants within the host can then be explicitly related to the $d$-electron configurations and energies. This approach facilitates an understanding of the essential link between local crystal coordination and electronic/magnetic properties.
The effects of tetragonal strain on electronic and magnetic properties of strontium-doped lanthanum manganite, La_{2/3}Sr_{1/3}MnO_3 (LSMO), are investigated by means of density-functional methods. As far as the structural properties are concerned, the comparison between theory and experiments for LSMO strained on the most commonly used substrates, shows an overall good agreement: the slight overestimate (at most of 1-1.5 %) for the equilibrium out-of-plane lattice constants points to possible defects in real samples. The inclusion of a Hubbard-like contribution on the Mn d states, according to the so-called LSDA+U approach, is rather ineffective from the structural point of view, but much more important from the electronic and magnetic point of view. In particular, full half-metallicity, which is missed within a bare density-functional approach, is recovered within LSDA+U, in agreement with experiments. Moreover, the half-metallic behavior, particularly relevant for spin-injection purposes, is independent on the chosen substrate and is achieved for all the considered in-plane lattice constants. More generally, strain effects are not seen to crucially affect the electronic structure: within the considered tetragonalization range, the minority gap is only slightly (i.e. by about 0.1-0.2 eV) affected by a tensile or compressive strain. Nevertheless, we show that the growth on a smaller in-plane lattice constant can stabilize the out-of-plane vs in-plane e_g orbital and significatively change their relative occupancy. Since e_g orbitals are key quantities for the double-exchange mechanism, strain effects are confirmed to be crucial for the resulting magnetic coupling.
On the basis of the density functional calculations in combination with the supercell approach, we report on a complete study of the influences of atomic arrangement and Ni substitution for Al on the ground state structural and magnetic properties for Fe$_2$Ni$_{1+x}$Al$_{1-x}$ Heusler alloys. We discuss systematically the competition between five cubic Heusler-type structures formed by shuffles of Fe and Ni atoms to reveal routes for improving the phase stability and magnetic properties, in particular magnetocrystalline anisotropy~(MAE). We predict that in case of Fe$_2$NiAl the ground state cubic structure with alternated layers of Fe and Ni possesses the highest uniaxial MAE which twice larger than that for the tetragonal L1$_0$ FeNi. The successive Ni doping at Al sublattice leads to a change of ground state structure and to reduce of the MAE. In addition, the phase stability against the decomposition into the stable systems at finite-temperatures is discussed. All~Ni-rich Fe$_2$Ni$_{1+x}$Al$_{1-x}$ are turned to be decomposed into a dual-phase consisting of Fe$_2$NiAl and FeNi.