214 research outputs found
Surface Half-Metallicity of CrAs in the Zinc-Blende Structure
The development of new techniques such as the molecular beam epitaxy have
enabled the growth of thin films of materials presenting novel properties.
Recently it was made possible to grow a CrAs thin-film in the zinc-blende
structure. In this contribution, the full-potential screened KKR method is used
to study the electronic and magnetic properties of bulk CrAs in this novel
phase as well as the Cr and As terminated (001) surfaces. Bulk CrAs is found to
be half-ferromagnetic for all three GaAs, AlAs and InAs experimental lattice
constants with a total spin magnetic moment of 3 . The Cr-terminated
surface retains the half-ferromagnetic character of the bulk, while in the case
of the As-termination the surface states destroy the gap in the minority-spin
band.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, new text, new titl
Electronic transport through domain walls in ferromagnetic nanowires: Co-existence of adiabatic and non-adiabatic spin dynamics
We study the effect of a domain wall on the electronic transport in
ferromagnetic quantum wires. Due to the transverse confinement, conduction
channels arise. In the presence of a domain wall, spin up and spin down
electrons in these channels become coupled. For very short domain walls or at
high longitudinal kinetic energy, this coupling is weak, leads to very few spin
flips, and a perturbative treatment is possible. For very long domain wall
structures, the spin follows adiabatically the local magnetization orientation,
suppressing the effect of the domain wall on the total transmission, but
reversing the spin of the electrons. In the intermediate regime, we numerically
investigate the spin-dependent transport behavior for different shapes of the
domain wall. We find that the knowledge of the precise shape of the domain wall
is not crucial for determining the qualitative behavior. For parameters
appropriate for experiments, electrons with low longitudinal energy are
transmitted adiabatically while the electrons at high longitudinal energy are
essentially unaffected by the domain wall. Taking this co-existence of
different regimes into account is important for the understanding of recent
experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
Field-driven femtosecond magnetization dynamics induced by ultrastrong coupling to THz transients
Controlling ultrafast magnetization dynamics by a femtosecond laser is
attracting interest both in fundamental science and industry because of the
potential to achieve magnetic domain switching at ever advanced speed. Here we
report experiments illustrating the ultrastrong and fully coherent light-matter
coupling of a high-field single-cycle THz transient to the magnetization vector
in a ferromagnetic thin film. We could visualize magnetization dynamics which
occur on a timescale of the THz laser cycle and two orders of magnitude faster
than the natural precession response of electrons to an external magnetic
field, given by the Larmor frequency. We show that for one particular
scattering geometry the strong coherent optical coupling can be described
within the framework of a renormalized Landau Lifshitz equation. In addition to
fundamentally new insights to ultrafast magnetization dynamics the coherent
interaction allows for retrieving the complex time-frequency magnetic
properties and points out new opportunities in data storage technology towards
significantly higher storage speed.Comment: 25 page
Enhancement of the Josephson current by an exchange field in superconductor-ferromagnet structures
We calculate the dc Josephson current for two superconductor-ferromagnet
(S/F) bilayers separated by a thin insulating film. It is demonstrated that the
critical Josephson current in the junction strongly depends on the
relative orientation of the effective exchange field of the bilayers. We
found that in the case of an antiparallel orientation, increases at low
temperatures with increasing and at zero temperature has a singularity when
equals the superconducting gap . This striking behavior contrasts
suppression of the critical current by the magnetic moments aligned in parallel
and is an interesting new effect of the interplay between superconductors and
ferromagnets.Comment: to be published in PR
Twisted exchange interaction between localized spins embedded in a one- or two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling
We study theoretically the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interaction
in one- and two-dimensions in presence of a Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupling. We
show that rotation of the spin of conduction electrons due to SO coupling
causes a twisted RKKY interaction between localized spins which consists of
three different terms: Heisenberg, Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya, and Ising
interactions. We also show that the effective spin Hamiltonian reduces to the
usual RKKY interaction Hamiltonian in the twisted spin space where the spin
quantization axis of one localized spin is rotated.Comment: 4pages, no figur
Electric Field Control of Spin Transport
Spintronics is an approach to electronics in which the spin of the electrons
is exploited to control the electric resistance R of devices. One basic
building block is the spin-valve, which is formed if two ferromagnetic
electrodes are separated by a thin tunneling barrier. In such devices, R
depends on the orientation of the magnetisation of the electrodes. It is
usually larger in the antiparallel than in the parallel configuration. The
relative difference of R, the so-called magneto-resistance (MR), is then
positive. Common devices, such as the giant magneto-resistance sensor used in
reading heads of hard disks, are based on this phenomenon. The MR may become
anomalous (negative), if the transmission probability of electrons through the
device is spin or energy dependent. This offers a route to the realisation of
gate-tunable MR devices, because transmission probabilities can readily be
tuned in many devices with an electrical gate signal. Such devices have,
however, been elusive so far. We report here on a pronounced gate-field
controlled MR in devices made from carbon nanotubes with ferromagnetic
contacts. Both the amplitude and the sign of the MR are tunable with the gate
voltage in a predictable manner. We emphasise that this spin-field effect is
not restricted to carbon nanotubes but constitutes a generic effect which can
in principle be exploited in all resonant tunneling devices.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure
Stable and Metastable Structures of Cobalt on Cu(001): An ab initio Study
We report results of density-functional theory calculations on the
structural, magnetic, and electronic properties of (1x1)-structures of Co on
Cu(001) for coverages up to two monolayers. In particular we discuss the
tendency towards phase separation in Co islands and the possibility of
segregation of Cu on top of the Co-film. A sandwich structure consisting of a
bilayer Co-film covered by 1ML of Cu is found to be the lowest-energy
configuration. We also discuss a bilayer c(2x2)-alloy which may form due to
kinetic reasons, or be stabilized at strained surface regions. Furthermore, we
study the influence of magnetism on the various structures and, e.g., find that
Co adlayers induce a weak spin-density wave in the copper substrate.Comment: 11 pages including 4 figures. Related publications can be found at
http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/paper.htm
Reorientation of Spin Density Waves in Cr(001) Films induced by Fe(001) Cap Layers
Proximity effects of 20 \AA thin Fe layers on the spin density waves (SDWs)
in epitaxial Cr(001) films are revealed by neutron scattering. Unlike in bulk
Cr we observe a SDW with its wave vector Q pointing along only one {100}
direction which depends dramatically on the film thickness t_{Cr}. For t_{Cr} <
250 \AA the SDW propagates out-of-plane with the spins in the film plane. For
t_{Cr} > 1000 \AA the SDW propagates in the film plane with the spins
out-of-plane perpendicular to the in-plane Fe moments. This reorientation
transition is explained by frustration effects in the antiferromagnetic
interaction between Fe and Cr across the Fe/Cr interface due to steps at the
interface.Comment: 4 pages (RevTeX), 3 figures (EPS
Weak localization in ferromagnets with spin-orbit interaction
Weak localization corrections to conductivity of ferromagnetic systems are
studied theoretically in the case when spin-orbit interaction plays a
significant role. Two cases are analyzed in detail: (i) the case when the
spin-orbit interaction is due to scattering from impurities, and (ii) the case
when the spin-orbit interaction results from reduced dimensionality of the
system and is of the Bychkov-Rashba type. Results of the analysis show that the
localization corrections to conductivity of ferromagnetic metals lead to a
negative magnetoresistance -- also in the presence of the spin-orbit
scattering. Positive magnetoresistance due to weak antilocalization, typical of
nonmagnetic systems, does not occur in ferromagnetic systems. In the case of
two-dimensional ferromagnets, the quantum corrections depend on the
magnetization orientation with respect to the plane of the system.Comment: 14 pages with 10 figures, corrected and extended version, Sec.7 adde
Giant magnetothermopower of magnon-assisted transport in ferromagnetic tunnel junctions
We present a theoretical description of the thermopower due to
magnon-assisted tunneling in a mesoscopic tunnel junction between two
ferromagnetic metals. The thermopower is generated in the course of thermal
equilibration between two baths of magnons, mediated by electrons. For a
junction between two ferromagnets with antiparallel polarizations, the ability
of magnon-assisted tunneling to create thermopower depends on the
difference between the size of the majority and
minority band Fermi surfaces and it is proportional to a temperature dependent
factor where is the magnon Debye
energy. The latter factor reflects the fractional change in the net
magnetization of the reservoirs due to thermal magnons at temperature
(Bloch's law). In contrast, the contribution of magnon-assisted
tunneling to the thermopower of a junction with parallel polarizations is
negligible. As the relative polarizations of ferromagnetic layers can be
manipulated by an external magnetic field, a large difference results in a magnetothermopower effect. This
magnetothermopower effect becomes giant in the extreme case of a junction
between two half-metallic ferromagnets, .Comment: 9 pages, 4 eps figure
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