Quantum conductance of a single magnetic atom: An ab initio study
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2010Access:
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Tao, K., Rungger, I., Sanvito, S., Stepanyuk, V.S., Quantum conductance of a single magnetic atom: An ab initio study, Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, 82, 8, 2010, art. no. 085412Download Item:
Abstract:
Our
ab initio
study explains recent puzzling experiments on the conductance of a single Co adatom depos-
ited either on Cu
111
or on ferromagnetic Co islands and contacted with both magnetic and nonmagnetic
electrodes
N. Neel, J. Kroger, and R. Berndt,
Phys. Rev. Lett.
102
, 086805
2009
. We provide clear evidence
that the conductance of a single atomic junction in the contact regime is close to
G
0
/
2
G
0
is the quantum of
conductance
for ferromagnetic electrodes and to
G
0
for nonmagnetic ones. Spin-dependent calculations reveal
that a conductance of
G
0
/
2 originates from a combination of partially open majority and minority channels.
The bonding between the Co adatom and the Co island reduces significantly the contribution of the minority
d
electrons to the conductance, leading to the observation of half-integer conductance
Author's Homepage:
http://people.tcd.ie/sanvitoshttp://people.tcd.ie/runggei
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PUBLISHED
Author: SANVITO, STEFANO; RUNGGER, IVAN
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Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics82
8
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