Adsorbate modification of the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of ferromagnetic fcc {110} surfaces

We identify trends in structural, electronic, and magnetic modifications that occur on ferromagnetic {110} surfaces upon varying either the substrate material or the adsorbate species. First, we have modeled the adsorption of several first-row p-block elements on the surface of fcc Co{110} at two coverages [0.5 and 1.0 monolayer (ML)]. All adsorbates were found to expand the distance between the first and second substrate layers and to contract the distance between the second and third layers. The energetic location of a characteristic trough in the density-of-d-states difference plot correlates with the direction of the adsorbate magnetic coupling to the surface, and a trend of antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic coupling to the surface was observed across the elements from boron to fluorine. A high fluorine adatom coverage (1.0 ML) was found to enhance the surface spin magnetic moment by similar to 11%. Second, we also calculate and contrast adsorption of 0.5 and 1.0 ML of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen adatoms on fcc iron, cobalt, and nickel {110} surfaces and compare the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of these systems. Carbon and nitrogen are found to couple antiferromagnetically, and oxygen ferromagnetically, to all surfaces. It was found that antiferromagnetically coupled adsorbates retained their largest spin moment values on iron, whereas ferromagnetically coupled adsorbates possessed their lowest moments on this surface. The strongly localized influence of these adsorbates is clearly illustrated in partial density-of-states plots for the surface atoms.