Electronic structure and magnetic anisotropy of CrO_2

TL;DR

This study investigates the electronic structure and magnetic anisotropy of CrO₂, finding that weak electron correlations best explain experimental data, with implications for understanding its magnetic properties.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates that standard LSDA calculations suffice for CrO₂, challenging the necessity of Hubbard U corrections for its low-temperature phase.

Findings

LSDA fits experimental data well

CrO₂ is weakly correlated

Hubbard U corrections are unnecessary

Abstract

The problem of importance of strong correlations for the electronic structure, transport and magnetic properties of half--metallic ferromagnetic CrO_2 is addressed by performing density functional electronic structure calculations in the local spin density approximation (LSDA) as well as using the LSDA+U method. It is shown that the corresponding low--temperature experimental data are best fitted without accounting for the Hubbard U corrections. We conclude that the ordered phase of CrO$_2 is weakly correlated.