Magnetic anisotropy in itinerant magnets

Authors

Ralph Skomski, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Arti Kashyap, LNM Institute of Information Technology, Jaipur-302031, Rajasthan, IndiaFollow
A. Solanki, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur-302017, Rajasthan, India
Axel Enders, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
David J. Sellmyer, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2010

Comments

Published in JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS 107, 09A735 (2010). Copyright © 2010 American Institute of Physics. Used by permission.

Abstract

The structural dependence of the magnetocrystalline anisotropy of itinerant permanent magnets (or nanostructures of iron-series 3d elements) is investigated by model and tight-binding calculations. Magnetic nanostructures yield strong oscillations of the anisotropy as a function of the number of d electrons per atom, which can be tuned by alloying. While interatomic hopping is usually more important in metals than crystal-field interactions, we find substantial crystal-field corrections for some configurations, especially for the atomic square. Finally, we compare our results with Néel model.