Derivation of the spin Hamiltonians for Fe in MgO

Abstract

A method to calculate the effective spin Hamiltonian for a transition metal impurity in a non- magnetic insulating host is presented and applied to the paradigmatic case of Fe in MgO. In a first step we calculate the electronic structure employing standard density functional theory (DFT), based on generalized-gradient approximation (GGA), using plane waves as a basis set. The corresponding basis of atomic-like maximally localized Wannier functions is derived and used to represent the DFT Hamiltonian, resulting in a tight-binding model for the atomic orbitals of the magnetic impurity. The third step is to solve, by exact numerical diagonalization, the N electron problem in the open shell of the magnetic atom, including both effect of spin-orbit and Coulomb repulsion. Finally, the low energy sector of this multi-electron Hamiltonian is mapped into effective spin models that, in addition to the spin matrices S, can also include the orbital angular momentum L when appropriate. We successfully apply the method to Fe in MgO, considering both, the undistorted and Jahn-Teller (JT) distorted cases. Implications for the influence of Fe impurities on the performance of magnetic tunnel junctions based on MgO are discussed.