News & Scientific Highlights
New Method for Calculating Soft X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism Spectra
Scientists have demonstrated in a combined theoretical and experimental effort that the new ligand-field density functional theory method (LF-DFT) can be used to calculate the X-ray absorption spectra (XAS) and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) of lanthanide compounds from purely structural input.
Revealing a Living-Dead Magnetic Layer
A peculiar magnetic “dead layer” is detected at the surface of thin films of DyTiO3, a ferrimagnetic Mott insulator. Depth dependent X-ray absorption measurements performed at the X-Treme beamline in the Swiss Light Source indicate that this layer is associated with a deviation of the Ti valence from 3+ toward 4+ at the film surface, suppressing the magnetic coupling between Ti ions and unleashing a strong paramagnetic response from uncoupled Dy ions.
HERCULES at the Swiss Light Source
In the week of March 18-23 PSI welcomes 20 PhD students and postdocs taking part in the HERCULES 2018 school on Neutron and Synchrotron Radiation. They will attend lectures and perform two days of practical courses at several beam lines of the Swiss Light Source.
Wafer-thin Magnetic Materials Developed for Future Quantum Technologies
For the first time, researchers have produced a wafer-thin ferrimagnet, in which molecules with different magnetic centers arrange themselves on a gold surface to form a checkerboard pattern. Scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute, in collaboration with their research partners, published the findings in the journal Nature Communications.
Annual Retreat of the Microscopy & Magnetism Group
The Magnetism and Microscopy group has met for its annual retreat meeting in Lungern 11- 15.1.2017 (in the central mountain region of Switzerland) for extensive discussions on its science program. As for other years, after some general introductory lecture into the techniques used, current and future projects have been presented by the PhD students, postdocs, and scientists as well as from guests who collaborate with the group. Discussion went into the time where dinner has been prepared together, followed by some leisure activities on Saturday.
The Smallest Magnet
Single holmium atoms adsorbed on few monolayers of magnesium oxide are extraordinarily stable magnets. They retain a significant fraction of their magnetization when the external magnetic field is switched off. This has been shown recently in a study combining x-ray magnetic circular dichroism performed at the Swiss Light Source (SLS) and at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) as well as scanning tunneling microscopy. The results open perspectives of storing and processing information at ultrahigh density.
Magnesium Oxide Boosts the Hysteresis of Single-Molecule Magnets
Researchers from PSI and EPFL have demonstrated that the magnetization hysteresis and remanence of TbPc2 single-molecule magnets drastically depends on the substrate on which they are deposited. If a few atomic layers thick magnesium oxide film grown on a silver substrate is used, a record wide hysteresis and record large remanence can be obtained. Single-molecule magnets are attractive for molecular spintronics applications such as information processing or storage.
Magnetoelectroelastic control of magnetism
X-ray magnetic circular dichroism at the Co L3,2 edges measured at the X-Treme beamline, SLS and at the Advanced Light Source, evidence that three distinct electric field driven remanent magnetization states can be set in the Co film at room temperature. Ab initio density functional theory calculations unravel the relative contributions of both strain and charge to the observed magnetic anisotropy changes illustrating magnetoelectroelastic coupling at artificial multiferroic interfaces.
Tunable spin polarization and superconductivity in engineered oxide interfaces
A new kind of 2DEG is found by inserting two atomic layers of the antiferromagnetic and insulating compound EuTiO3 between LaAlO3 and SrTiO3. The 2DEG is found to exhibit besides a superconducting ground state, a strong spin-polarization. The magnetism of Eu and Ti was studied by XMCD at the X-Treme beamline in SLS.