1. Interplay between Orbital Magnetic Moment and Crystal Field Symmetry: Fe atoms on MgO
- Author
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Baumann, S., Donati, F., Stepanow, S., Rusponi, S., Paul, W., Gangopadhyay, S., Rau, I. G., Pacchioni, G. E., Gragnaniello, L., Pivetta, M., Dreiser, J., Piamonteze, C., Lutz, C. P., Macfarlane, R. M., Jones, B. A., Gambardella, P., Heinrich, A. J., and Brune, H.
- Subjects
Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics - Abstract
We combine density functional theory, x-ray magnetic circular dichroism, multiplet calculations, and scanning tunneling spectroscopy to assess the magnetic properties of Fe atoms adsorbed on a thin layer of MgO(100) on Ag(100). Despite the strong axial field due to the O ligand, the weak cubic field induced by the four-fold coordination to Mg atoms entirely quenches the first order orbital moment. This is in marked contrast to Co, which has an out-of-plane orbital moment of $L_z = \pm 3$ that is protected from mixing in a cubic ligand field. The spin-orbit interaction restores a large fraction of the Fe orbital moment leading a zero-field splitting of $14.0 \pm 0.3$~meV, the largest value reported for surface adsorbed Fe atoms., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures
- Published
- 2015