Controlling the Local Spin-Polarization at the Organic-Ferromagnetic Interface

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how organic molecules on ferromagnetic surfaces can be used to control local spin-polarization, enabling selective spin injection for advanced spintronic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to manipulate local spin-polarization at organic-ferromagnetic interfaces using ab initio calculations and STM experiments, revealing spin inversion mechanisms.

Findings

Spin-polarization can be inverted at organic sites via pz-d hybridization.

Selective injection of spin-up and spin-down electrons is achievable.

Hybridization effects enable control of local magnetic properties.

Abstract

By means of ab initio calculations and spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy experiments we show how to manipulate the local spin-polarization of a ferromagnetic surface by creating a complex energy dependent magnetic structure. We demonstrate this novel effect by adsorbing organic molecules containing pi(pz)-electrons onto a ferromagnetic surface, in which the hybridization of the out-of-plane pz atomic type orbitals with the d-states of the metal leads to the inversion of the spin-polarization at the organic site due to a pz - d Zener exchange type mechanism. As a key result, we demonstrate that it is possible to selectively inject spin-up and spin-down electrons from the same ferromagnetic surface, an effect which can be exploited in future spintronic devices.