Spin-resolved spectroscopic evidence for spinarons in Co adatoms
arXiv:2306.16084 · doi:10.1038/s41567-023-02262-6
Abstract
Single cobalt atoms on the (111) surfaces of noble metals were for a long time considered prototypical systems for the Kondo effect in scanning tunneling microscopy experiments. Yet, recent first-principle calculations suggest that the experimentally observed spectroscopic zero-bias anomaly (ZBA) should be interpreted in terms of excitations of the Co atom's spin and the formation of a novel quasiparticle, the spinaron, a magnetic polaron resulting from the interaction of spin excitations with conduction electrons, rather than in terms of a Kondo resonance. Here we present state-of-the-art spin-averaged and spin-polarized scanning tunneling spectroscopy measurements on Co atoms on the Cu(111) surface in magnetic fields of up to 12 T, that allow us to discriminate between the different theoretical models and to invalidate the prevailing Kondo-based interpretation of the ZBA. Employing extended ab-initio calculations, we instead provide strong evidence for multiple spinaronic states in the system. Our work opens a new avenue of research to explore the characteristics and consequences of these intriguing hybrid many-body states as well as their design in man-made nanostructures.
8 pages, 4 figures
References in corpus (8)
- Controlling the Kondo Effect in CoCu_n Clusters Atom by Atom
- Dynamical magnetic excitations of nanostructures from first-principles
- The Spin-Polarization of the Split Kondo State
- Relativistic dynamical spin excitations of magnetic adatoms
- Kondo resonance of a Co atom exchange coupled to a ferromagnetic tip
- Renormalization of electron self-energies via their interaction with spin excitations: A first-principles investigation
- Spin-polarized tunneling microscopy and the Kondo effect
- Spin-orbit coupling and Kondo resonance in Co adatom on Cu(100) surface: DFT+ED study