First-principles study of spin-disorder resistivity of heavy rare-earth metals: Gd-Tm series

Article

关键词: AB-INITIO THEORY;    ELECTRICAL-RESISTIVITY;    SINGLE-CRYSTALS;    MAGNETIZATION;    TEMPERATURE;    GADOLINIUM;    DYSPROSIUM;    RESISTANCE;    PRESSURE;    ALLOYS;   

DOI  :  10.1103/PhysRevB.85.214405

来源: SCIE

【 摘 要 】

Electrical resistivity of heavy rare-earth metals has a dominant contribution from thermal spin-disorder scattering. Here this spin-disorder resistivity is calculated for the Gd-Tm series of metals in the paramagnetic state. Calculations are performed within the tight-binding linear muffin-tin orbital method using two complementary methods: (1) averaging of the Landauer-Buttiker conductance of a supercell over random noncollinear spin-disorder configurations, and (2) linear response calculations with the spin-disordered state described in the coherent potential approximation. The agreement between these two methods is found to be excellent. The spin-disorder resistivity in the series follows an almost universal dependence on the exchange splitting. While the crystallographic anisotropy of the spin-disorder resistivity agrees well with experiment, its magnitude is significantly underestimated. These results suggest that the classical picture of slowly rotating self-consistent local moments is inadequate for rare-earth metals. A simple quantum correction improves agreement with experiment but does not fully account for the discrepancy, suggesting that more complicated scattering mechanisms may be important.

【 授权许可】

Free