https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2013-30561-4
Regular Article
Chemical order and magnetic properties in small Mx−2N2 nanoalloys*
King’s College of London, Department of Physics,
WC2R 2 LS London, UK
a e-mail: cono.dipaola@kcl.ac.uk
b e-mail: francesca.baletto@kcl.ac.uk
Received:
8
September
2012
Received in final form:
11
December
2012
Published online:
19
March
2013
A systematic analysis of the chemical order, structure stability and magnetic behaviour of small transition metal binary nanoalloys is performed employing spin-polarised ab-initio simulations. The doping of icosahedral geometries at 13 and 19 atoms of magnetic materials with two impurities both magnetic (Fe, Co, Ni, Pt) and non-magnetic (Ag, Cu) is considered. In CoFe, the most favourable substitutional sites are those which maximise the total magnetic moment of the system: Fe dopants tend to occupy surface sites while Co atoms stay in the inner. For all the other nanoalloys, the doping sites respect a chemical order that leads to a surface energy minimization often followed by a depression of the total magnetization. The ferromagnetic arrangement is always the energetically most favourable order apart from the Ag-doped case where the anti-ferromagnetic alignment is almost degenerate to the ferromagnetic phase.
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag 2013