Deung-Jang Choi, Mircea V. Rastei, Jong Soo Lim, Rosa López, Pascal Simon, Laurent Limot
The ability to build well-calibrated junctions with a single atom bridging two electrodes of different geometry and chemical nature represents an opportunity for examining spin transport at the smallest possible length scale. Here we report the atomic-scale detection of a spin-polarised current flowing between a ferromagnet and a nonmagnet. For this purpose, we coat the bulk ferromagnetic tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope with non-magnetic copper and form a stable single-atom contact with a cobalt atom adsorbed on a Cu(100) surface. The presence of a spin-polarised current across the non-magnetic copper is probed through the Kondo effect of the Co atom as the current densities are sufficiently high to promote a splitting of the Kondo resonance. Our findings show that spin injection into a single atom is feasible and that, moreover, it can be controlled by altering the chemical properties of the contact.
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http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.5903
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