Kondo Effect and Conductance of Nanocontacts with Magnetic Impurities

We study the impact of dynamical correlations on the electronic structure and coherent transport properties of Cu nanocontacts hosting a single magnetic impurity (Ni, Co, Fe) in the contact region. The strong dynamical correlations of the impurity 3d electrons are fully taken into account by combining density-functional calculations with a dynamical treatment of the impurity 3d shell in the one-crossing approximation. We find that dynamical correlations give rise to the Kondo effect and lead to Fano features in the coherent transport characteristics similar to those observed in related experiments.