Emergence of local magnetic moments in doped graphene-related materials
Citation:
P. Venezuela, R. B. Muniz, A. T. Costa, D. M. Edwards, S. R. Power and M. S. Ferreira, Emergence of local magnetic moments in doped graphene-related materials, Physical Review B (Rapid Communication), 80, 2009, 241413 (R)-Download Item:
Emergence.pdf (Published (publisher's copy) - Peer Reviewed) 74.70Kb
Abstract:
Motivated by recent studies reporting the formation of localized magnetic moments in doped graphene, we
investigate the energetic cost for spin polarizing isolated impurities embedded in this material. When a wellknown
criterion for the formation of local magnetic moments in metals is applied to graphene we are able to
predict the existence of magnetic moments in cases that are in clear contrast to previously reported densityfunctional
theory DFT results. When generalized to periodically repeated impurities, a geometry so commonly
used in most DFT calculations, this criterion shows that the energy balance involved in such calculations
contains unavoidable contributions from the long-ranged pairwise magnetic interactions between all
impurities. This proves the fundamental inadequacy of the DFT assumption of independent unit cells in the
case of magnetically doped low-dimensional graphene-based materials. We show that this can be circumvented
if more than one impurity per unit cell is considered, in which case the DFT results agree perfectly well with
the criterion-based predictions for the onset of localized magnetic moments in graphene. Furthermore, the
existence of such a criterion determining whether or not a magnetic moment is likely to arise within graphene
will be instrumental for predicting the ideal materials for future carbon-based spintronic applications.
Author's Homepage:
http://people.tcd.ie/ferreirmhttp://people.tcd.ie/stpower
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PUBLISHED
Author: Ferreira, Mauro; Power, Stephen
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Journal ArticleCollections:
Series/Report no:
Physical Review B (Rapid Communication)80
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Full text availableKeywords:
Physics, graphene-based materialsSubject (TCD):
Nanoscience & MaterialsDOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.80.241413Licences: