Electronic and magnetic influences of a stacking fault in cobalt nanoscale islands on the Ag(111) surface

TL;DR

This study investigates how stacking faults in cobalt nanoscale islands on Ag(111) influence their electronic and magnetic properties, revealing a correlation between moire pattern amplitude and magnetization orientation through experimental and theoretical analysis.

Contribution

It demonstrates the impact of stacking faults on magnetic anisotropy in cobalt islands, combining experimental spin-polarized microscopy with density functional theory calculations.

Findings

Stronger moire corrugation correlates with perpendicular magnetization.

Weaker moire corrugation correlates with in-plane magnetization.

Density functional theory explains the relationship via stacking faults.

Abstract

Utilizing spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy, we found coexistence of perpendicularly and in-plane magnetized cobalt nanoscale islands on the Ag(111) surface, and the relationship between the moire corrugation amplitude and the magnetization direction of the islands; the islands with the stronger moire corrugation show the perpendicular magnetization, and the ones with the weaker moire corrugation do the in-plane. Density functional theory calculations reproduce the relationship and explain the differences between the two types of the islands with an fcc stacking fault in the intrinsic hcp stacking of cobalt.