Magnetic and Electronic Structure Calculations of Rare-Earth Nitrides
摘要
A broad range of applications in spintronics and spin-filtering devices are found in rare earth nitrides due to its half-metallic behaviour and high magnetic moments. We intend to study the electronic and magnetic properties of REN in the frame work of density functional theory (DFT) by using the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method. It was found from the computed density of states (DOS) and the band structures that the total DOS of EuN is contributed mainly by the 4f-state electrons of the Eu atom. In the case of SmN and EuN, we fill the majority spin f states and create an exchange field that is felt by the other electrons in the material whose effect is more pronounced and leads to a significant-splitting of the nitrogen p bands.