Eur. Phys. J. B 47, 509-515 (2005)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2005-00363-4

The magnetic moment reduction of fullerene encapsulated gadolinium. A combined effect of spin-orbit interaction and anisotropic hybridisation

Gd moment reduction in fullerene

European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, BP 220, 38043 Grenoble Cedex, France

Corresponding author: ^a mirone@esrf.fr

Received: 15 November 2004
Revised: 25 July 2005
Published online: 17 November 2005

Abstract

We propose a theoretical model to account for the recently observed magnetic moment reduction of gadolinium in fullerenes. While this reduction has been observed also for other trivalent rare-earth atoms (Dy³⁺, Er³⁺, Ho³⁺) in fullerenes, and can be ascribed to crystal field effects, the explanation of this phenomena for Gd³⁺ is not straightforward due to the spherical nature of its ground state (S=7/2, L=0). In our model the momentum reduction is the result of a subtle interplay between hybridisation and the spin-orbit interaction.