Controlled complete suppression of single-atom inelastic spin and orbital cotunnelling

Abstract

The inelastic portion of the tunnel current through an individual magnetic atom grants unique access to read out and change the atom's spin state, but it also provides a path for spontaneous relaxation and decoherence. Controlled closure of the inelastic channel would allow for the latter to be switched off at will, paving the way to coherent spin manipulation in single atoms. Here we demonstrate complete closure of the inelastic channels for both spin and orbital transitions due to a controlled geometric modification of the atom's environment, using scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM). The observed suppression of the excitation signal, which occurs for Co atoms assembled into chain on a Cu${}_2$N substrate, indicates a structural transition affecting the d${}_z$${}^2$ orbital, effectively cutting off the STM tip from the spin-flip cotunnelling path.

4 figures plus 4 supplementary figures

References in corpus (4)

• Quantum ESPRESSO: a modular and open-source software project for quantum simulations of materials
• Spin Excitations and Correlations in Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy
• Electric Field Controlled Magnetic Anisotropy in a Single Molecule
• Protection of excited spin states by a superconducting energy gap

Cited by in corpus (14)

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• Spin decoherence of magnetic atoms on surfaces
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• Topological spin excitations in Harper-Heisenberg spin chains
• Confinement-engineered superconductor to correlated-insulator transition in a van der Waals monolayer
• Coherent and incoherent tunneling into YSR states revealed by atomic scale shot-noise spectroscopy
• Electronic properties of transition metal atoms on Cu${}_2$N/Cu(100)
• Complete reversal of the atomic unquenched orbital moment by a single electron
• Magnetic anisotropy in surface-supported single-ion lanthanide complexes
• Tuning paramagnetic spin-excitations of single adatoms
• Extremely long-lived magnetic excitations in supported Fe chains
• Spin-fluctuation and spin-relaxation effects of single adatoms from first principles
• Electronic structure of atomic manganese chains supported on Cu${}_2$N / Cu (100)
• Fractional spin excitations and conductance in the spiral staircase Heisenberg ladder