Transmission through correlated Cu$_n$CoCu$_n$ heterostructures

TL;DR

This study investigates how local electronic interactions and temperature affect electron transmission in Cu-Co-Cu heterostructures, revealing increased spin polarization and a shift towards d-electron contributions at the Fermi level.

Contribution

It combines density functional theory with dynamical mean field theory to analyze the impact of electronic correlations on transmission properties in heterostructures.

Findings

Transmission at Fermi level decreases with correlations, especially in minority spins.

Spin polarization of transmission increases due to correlations.

d-electron contribution becomes more significant compared to non-correlated case.

Abstract

The effects of local electronic interactions and finite temperatures upon the transmission across the Cu$_4$CoCu$_4$ metallic heterostructure are studied in a combined density functional and dynamical mean field theory. It is shown that, as the electronic correlations are taken into account via a local but dynamic self-energy, the total transmission at the Fermi level gets reduced (predominantly in the minority spin channel), whereby the spin polarization of the transmission increases. The latter is due to a more significant $d$-electrons contribution, as compared to the non-correlated case in which the transport is dominated by $s$ and $p$ electrons.