2012/07/31 by Krisztián Palotás · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Magnetic properties of thin films #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Surface and Thin Film Phenomena #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #physics.comp-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.87.024417
published as Physical Review B 87, 024417 (2013) · 28 pages manuscript, 1 table, 6 figures
arxiv created 2013/01/15 · openalex publication_date 2013/01/24 · arxiv updated 2013/01/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This work is concerned with the theoretical description of the contrast, i.e., the apparent height difference between two lateral surface positions on constant current spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy (SP-STM) images. We propose a method to predict the bias voltage dependent magnetic contrast from single-point tunneling current or differential conductance measurements, without the need of scanning large areas of the surface. Depending on the number of single-point measurements, the bias positions of magnetic contrast reversals and of the maximally achievable magnetic contrast can be determined. We validate this proposal by simulating SP-STM images on a complex magnetic surface employing a recently developed approach based on atomic superposition. Furthermore, we show evidence that the tip electronic structure and magnetic orientation have a major effect on the magnetic contrast. Our theoretical prediction is expected to inspire experimentalists to considerably reduce measurement efforts for determining the bias-dependent magnetic contrast on magnetic surfaces.