Calculated iron $L_{2,3}$ x-ray absorption and XMCD of spin-crossover Fe(phen)$_{2}$(NCS)$_{2}$ molecule adsorbed on Cu(001) surface

TL;DR

This study uses the PAW method to calculate the XAS and XMCD spectra of a spin-crossover Fe(phen)$_{2}$(NCS)$_{2}$ molecule on Cu(001), revealing how spin states and surface interactions influence magnetic properties.

Contribution

It provides a detailed computational analysis of iron L$_{2,3}$ edges in both gas phase and surface-adsorbed states, highlighting the importance of initial state approximations and surface effects.

Findings

XAS and XMCD spectra are better matched with the initial state approximation.

Surface screening reduces the iron spin magnetic moment.

XMCD dependence on incident light direction reveals iron octahedral deformation.

Abstract

The PAW method has been used to compute the iron L$_{2,3}$ edges of x-ray absorption spectra (XAS) and x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) of the spin-crossover Fe(phen)$_{2}$(NCS)$_{2}$ molecule when adsorbed on Cu(001) surface and in the gas phase, for both the high spin (HS) and low spin (LS) states. It is found that the calculated XAS and XMCD with the static core hole or the Slater transition state half hole are in less good agreement with experiment than those using the so called initial state. This disagreement is due to the reduction of the iron spin magnetic moment caused by the static screening of the core hole by the photo-electron. The L$_{2,3}$ XAS formula is found to be directly related to the unoccupied $3d$ density of states (DOS), and hence the symmetry broken $e_g$ and the $t_{2g}$ iron DOS are used to explain the XAS and XMCD results. It is demonstrated that the dependence of the HS XMCD on the direction of incident x-ray circularly polarized light with respect to the magnetization direction can be used to determine the iron octahedron deformation, while the XMCD for various magnetization directions is directly related to the anisotropy of the orbital magnetic moment and the magneto-crystalline energy. It is also shown that the magnetic dipole moment $T_z$ is very large due to the strong distortion of the iron octahedron and is necessary for an accurate determination of the sum rule computed spin magnetic moment.