Electronic structure and magnetic anisotropy for nickel-based molecular magnets

Recent magnetic measurements on tetra-nickel molecular magnets [Ni(hmp)(ROH)Cl]$_4$, where R=CH$_3$, CH$_2$CH$_3$, or (CH$_2$)$_2$C(CH$_3$)$_3$ and hmp$^-$ is the monoanion of 2-hydroxymethylpyridine, revealed a strong exchange bias prior to the external magnetic field reversal as well as anomalies in electron paramagnetic resonance peaks at low temperatures. To understand the exchange bias and observed anomalies, we calculate the electronic structure and magnetic properties for the Ni$_4$ molecules with the three different ligands, employing density-functional theory. Considering the optimized structure with possible collinear spin configurations, we determine a total spin of the lowest-energy state to be S=0, which does not agree with experiment. We also calculate magnetic anisotropy barriers for all three types of Ni$_4$ molecules to be in the range of 4-6 K.Comment: Will be presented at MMM conference 200

Electronic and Optical Properties of Vacancy Defects in Transition Metal Dichalcogenides

A detailed first-principle study has been performed to evaluate the electronic and optical properties of single-layer (SL) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) (MX${}_2$; M= transition metal such as Mo, W and X= S, Se, Te), in the presence of vacancy defects (VDs). Defects usually play an important role in tailoring electronic, optical, and magnetic properties of semiconductors. We consider three types of VDs in SL TMDCs i) $X$-vacancy, $X_{2}$-vacancy, and iii) $M$-vacancy. We show that VDs lead to localized defect states (LDS) in the band structure, which in turn give rise to sharp transitions in in-plane and out-of-plane optical susceptibilities, $\chi_{\parallel}$ and $\chi_{\perp}$. The effects of spin orbit coupling (SOC) are also considered. We find that SOC splitting in LDS is directly related to the atomic number of the transition metal atoms. Apart from electronic and optical properties we also find magnetic signatures (local magnetic moment of $\sim\mu_{B}$) in MoSe$_{2}$ in the presence of Mo vacancy, which breaks the time reversal symmetry and therefore lifts the Kramers degeneracy. We show that a simple qualitative tight binding model (TBM), involving only the hopping between atoms surrounding the vacancy with an on-site SOC term, is sufficient to capture the essential features of LDS. In addition, the existence of the LDS can be understood from the solution of the 2D Dirac Hamiltonian by employing infinite mass boundary conditions. In order to provide a clear description of the optical absorption spectra, we use group theory to derive the optical selection rules between LDS for both $\chi_{\parallel}$ and $\chi_{\perp}$.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figure