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Metallic Surface Reconstruction Driven by Frustrated Antiferromagnetism

J. P. Rodriguez, Emilio Artacho

cond-mat.str-elarXiv:cond-mat/9811164

Abstract

A magnetic origin for the honeycomb reconstruction of metallic surfaces with three-fold symmetry like Pb/Ge (111) is proposed. Assuming that the groundstate is an antiferromagnetic insulator over the triangular lattice of adatom sites (Pb), we demonstrate that the former is simultaneously unstable to canting and to a structural distortion if the surface is soft enough. We therefore predict a net magnetization over the reconstructed surface at sufficiently low temperature.

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