9 research outputs found
Magnetic properties of Co doped Nb clusters
From magnetic deflection experiments on isolated Co doped Nb clusters we made
the interesting observation of some clusters being magnetic, while others
appear to be non-magnetic. There are in principle two explanations for this
behavior. Either the local moment at the Co site is completely quenched or it
is screened by the delocalized electrons of the cluster, i.e. the Kondo effect.
In order to reveal the physical origin, we conducted a combined theoretical and
experimental investigation. First, we established the ground state geometry of
the clusters by comparing the experimental vibrational spectra with those
obtained from a density functional theory study. Then, we performed an analyses
based on the Anderson impurity model. It appears that the non-magnetic clusters
are due to a complete quenching of the local Co moment and not due to the Kondo
effect. In addition, the magnetic behavior of the clusters can be understood
from an inspection of their electronic structure. Here magnetism is favored
when the effective hybridization around the chemical potential is small, while
the absence of magnetism is signalled by a large effective hybridization around
the chemical potential.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure