Pressure-induced s-band ferromagnetism in alkali metals

Abstract

First-principles density-functional-theory calculations show that compression of alkali metals stabilizes open structures with localized interstitial electrons which may exhibit a Stoner-type instability towards ferromagnetism. We find ferromagnetic phases of the lithium-IV-type, simple cubic, and simple hexagonal structures in the heavier alkali metals, which may be described as s-band ferromagnets. We predict that the most stable phases of potassium at low temperatures and pressures around 20 GPa are ferromagnets.

5 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Ab initio Random Structure Searching
• High-pressure phases of silane
• Interstitial Electronic Localization
• Structure stability in the simple element sodium under pressure

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