| AVS 54th International Symposium | |
| Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures | Wednesday Sessions |
| Session MI-WeM |
| Session: | Magnetic Thin Films and Nanostructures |
| Presenter: | S.J. Jenkins, University of Cambridge, UK |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Half-metallic materials, which exhibit complete spin-polarisation at the Fermi level, hold great promise for device applications in the field of spintronics. Amongst a variety of potential drawbacks, however, one of the most pressing is a lack of knowledge concerning surface and interface properties. In particular, the relationship between the stability of different surface/interface phases and the presence of surface/interface-localised electronic states is of great importance.1,2 We have performed first-principles density functional calculations aimed at elucidating this relationship for various surfaces of the half-metallic zincblende phase of MnSb, demonstrating that it is essential to account for the possibility of reconstruction in determining whether half-metallicity is retained at the surface.3
1 S.J. Jenkins and D.A. King, Surf. Sci. Lett. 494, L793 (2001).
2 S.J. Jenkins, Phys. Rev. B 70, 245401 (2005).
3 S. Mollet and S.J. Jenkins, J. Phys.: Cond. Matter (invited, in press).