Structural and magnetic properties of Au/Pd/Au sandwiches: A total energy all‐electron approach Available to Purchase

The possibility of magnetism induced in Pd when sandwiched between Au layers, first proposed and studied experimentally by Brodsky and Freeman, is investigated by means of highly precise all‐electron total energy local spin‐density calculations employing the thin‐film full‐potential linearized augmented plane wave (FLAPW) method. Total energy local density calculations are employed on a Au/Pd/Au sandwich with three Pd layers to obtain the structural properties and five Pd layers to obtain the magnetic properties of an Au/Pd/Au sandwich. Detailed results are obtained with spin polarized calculations for the Pd lattice constant stretched taking into account (i) the misfit between the lattice constants of Au and Pd and (ii) proximity effects in a self‐consistent way. The magnetic moment of the center Pd layer is found to be 0.02μ_B which is consistent with the experiment of Brodsky. A negligible magnetic moment for the interface Pd layers is obtained.