Towards a microscopic description of dimer adsorbates on metallic surfaces

TL;DR

This paper develops a microscopic theory incorporating many-body effects to better understand STM spectra of magnetic adatoms, specifically Cobalt on Copper surfaces, aligning theoretical predictions with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a novel microscopic model that includes wave functions and quantum many-body effects for magnetic adatoms on metallic surfaces.

Findings

Successfully computed STM spectra of Cobalt monomers and dimers

Achieved good agreement with experimental data

Enhanced understanding of magnetic adatom electronic structure

Abstract

Despite the experimental successes of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) and the interest in more complex magnetic nanostructures, our present understanding and theoretical description of STM spectra of magnetic adatoms is mainly phenomenological and most often ignores many-body effects. Here, we propose a theory which includes a microscopic description of the wave functions of the substrate and magnetic adatoms together with quantum many-body effects. To test our theory, we have computed the STM spectra of magnetic Cobalt monomers and dimers adsorbed on metallic Copper surfaces and succesfully compared our results to recent available experimental data.