Polar surface engineering in ultra-thin MgO(111)/Ag(111) -- possibility of metal-insulator transition and magnetism

Abstract

A recent report [Kiguchi {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 68}, 115402 (2003)] that the (111) surface of 5 MgO layers grown epitaxially on Ag(111) becomes metallic to reduce the electric dipole moment raises a question of what will happen when we have fewer MgO layers. Here we have revealed, first experimentally with electron energy-loss spectroscopy, that MgO(111) remains metallic even when one-layer thick, and theoretically with the density functional theory that the metallization should depend on the nature of the substrate. We further show, with a spin-density functional calculation, that a ferromagnetic instability may be expected for thicker films.

arXiv comment5 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Water Chemisorption and Reconstruction of the MgO Surface
• Atomic and Electronic Structures of Unreconstructed Polar MgO(111) Thin Film on Ag(111)
• Metal-Induced Gap States at Well Defined Alkali-Halide/Metal Interfaces
• Electronic properties of metal induced gap states at insulator/metal interfaces -- dependence on the alkali halide and the possibility of excitonic mechanism of superconductivity

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