https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2016-70402-2
Regular Article
Competition between quantum spin tunneling and Kondo effect
1 Max-Planck-Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik, Weinberg 2, 06120 Halle, Germany
2 International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL), 4715-330 Braga, Portugal
3 Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Alicante, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Spain
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e-mail: djacob@mpi-halle.de
Received: 28 June 2016
Received in final form: 21 July 2016
Published online: 3 October 2016
Quantum spin tunneling and Kondo effect are two very different quantum phenomena that produce the same effect on quantized spins, namely, the quenching of their magnetization. However, the nature of this quenching is very different so that quantum spin tunneling and Kondo effect compete with each other. Importantly, both quantum spin tunneling and Kondo effect produce very characteristic features in the spectral function that can be measured by means of single spin scanning tunneling spectroscopy and allows to probe the crossover from one regime to the other. We model this crossover, and the resulting changes in transport, using a non-perturbative treatment of a generalized Anderson model including magnetic anisotropy that leads to quantum spin tunneling. We predict that, at zero magnetic field, integer spins can feature a split-Kondo peak driven by quantum spin tunneling.
Key words: Solid State and Materials
© The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
