Electronic structure, photoemission, and magnetism in Gd₂Co and Er₂Co glasses

Authors

Sitaram Jaswal, University of NebraskaFollow
David J. Sellmyer, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
M. Engelhardt, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Z. Zhao, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
A.J. Arko, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois
K. Xie, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Date of this Version

January 1987

Comments

Published by American Physical Society. Phys. Rev. B 35, 996 (1987). http://prb.aps.org. Copyright © 1987 American Physical Society. Permission to use.

Abstract

The electronic and magnetic structures of amorphous Gd₂Co and Er₂Co are studied by ultraviolet and x-ray photoemission measurements and band calculations. The spectra for both glasses show a band of Co 3d levels centered at a binding energy E_B of about -1.0 eV and peaks arising from 4f levels at E_B=-8.4 eV and E_Bapeq2-5–9 eV for Gd and Er, respectively. Magnetization data have shown that a-Gd₂Co possesses a ferrimagnetic structure with a small Co moment. The linear-muffin-tin-orbital method is used to perform self-consistent, spin-polarized calculations in the semirelativistic approximation for Gd₂Co. Because of the complexity of the glassy structure, the calculations are performed for body-centered-tetragonal and cubic fluorite structures, and the sensitivity to local environment effects studied. The calculations are in a good overall agreement with the photoemission and magnetic-moment results.