Strong spin-orbit effects in small Pt clusters: Geometric structure, magnetic isomers and anisotropy
- Author(s)
- Piotr Blonski, Samuel Dennler, Juergen Hafner
- Abstract
Ab initio density functional calculations including spin-orbit coupling (SOC) have been performed for Pt-n, n = 2-6 clusters. The strong SOC tends to stabilize planar structures for n = 2-5, whereas for clusters consisting of six atoms, three-dimensional structures remain preferred. SOC leads to the formation of large orbital magnetic moments and to a mixing of different spin states. Due to the spin-mixing the total magnetic moment may be larger or smaller than the spin moment in the absence of SOC. Both spin and orbital moments are found to be anisotropic. Because of the strong SOC the energy differences between coexisting magnetic isomers can be comparable to or even smaller than their magnetic anisotropy energies. In this case the lowest barrier for magnetization reversal can be determined by a magnetic isomer which is different from the ground state configuration.
- Organisation(s)
- Computational Materials Physics
- External organisation(s)
- Université Montpellier 2
- Journal
- Journal of Chemical Physics
- Volume
- 134
- No. of pages
- 12
- ISSN
- 0021-9606
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3530799
- Publication date
- 2011
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103009 Solid state physics, 103015 Condensed matter, 103025 Quantum mechanics, 103036 Theoretical physics
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/strong-spinorbit-effects-in-small-pt-clusters-geometric-structure-magnetic-isomers-and-anisotropy(96ace62f-bded-4073-93a5-5c845eb4d85a).html