https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2006-00361-0
The semiconductor-to-ferromagnetic-metal transition in FeSb2
1
Institute of Metal Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences-Ural Division, 620041 Yekaterinburg, Russia
2
Ural State Technical University-UPI, 620002 Yekaterinburg, Russia
3
Institut für Theoretische Physik, ETH-Hönggerberg, 8050 Zürich, Switzerland
Corresponding author: a lukoyanov@optics.imp.uran.ru
Received:
2
April
2006
Revised:
18
July
2006
Published online:
6
October
2006
We propose FeSb2 to be a nearly ferromagnetic small gap semiconductor, hence a direct analog of FeSi. We find that despite different compositions and crystal structures, in the local density approximation with on-site Coulomb repulsion correction (LDA+U) method magnetic and semiconducting solutions for U=2.6 eV are energetically degenerate similar to the case of FeSi. For both FeSb2 and FeSi (FeSi1-xGex alloys) the underlying transition mechanism allows one to switch from a small gap semiconductor to a ferromagnetic metal with magnetic moment ≈1 μB per Fe ion with external magnetic field.
PACS: 71.27.+a – Strongly correlated electron systems; heavy fermions / 71.30.+h – Metal-insulator transitions and other electronic transitions
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2006
