4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
[7p-PB7-10] Relationship between magnetic orbital moments and magnetocrystalline anisotropy in transition-metal thin films on MgO(001)
Keywords:magnetocrystalline anisotropy, magnetic orbital moment
In 3d transition-metal (TM) thin films, it was theoretically suggested that magnetocrystalline anisotropy (MCA) energy, EMCA, is related to the anisotropy of magnetic orbital moments along the in-plane and the perpendicular plane directions of the thin films. Here, by using first principles calculations and machine learning techniques, the relationship between the orbital moments and the EMCA of TM thin films on MgO(001) is analyzed. Calculations of the orbital moments and the EMCA were carried out using first principles full-potential linearized augmented plane-wave method for single slabs with six atomic-layers of binary Fe-Au, Co-Au, and Fe-Co films on MgO(001). All atomic-layer configurations (26=64) for all thin-film systems were considered in the calculations. The EMCA is defined as difference in total energy for magnetizations oriented along the in-plane and perpendicular directions with respect to the film plane. The calculated EMCA strongly depends on the atomic-layer alignments. For Fe-Au (Co-Au) thin films, there is very large variation from 4.8 (6.1) meV/atom-area of the perpendicular MCA to -2.5 (-1.2) meV/atom-area of the in-plane MCA while for Fe-Co thin film, the variation is rather small from 1.4 to -1.5 meV/atom-area. We have successfully regressed the EMCA against the anisotropy of orbital moments in the Fe-Co thin films. For the Au-Fe and Au-Co thin films, however, our analysis shows no relation between them, implying that further analysis, e.g. by including the magnetic dipole moments, may be required.