Atomic-scale magnetism of cobalt-intercalated graphene

Using spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy and density functional theory, we have studied the structural and magnetic properties of cobalt-intercalated graphene on Ir(111). The cobalt forms monolayer islands being pseudomorphic with the Ir(111) beneath the graphene. The strong bonding between graphene and cobalt leads to a high corrugation within the Moire pattern which arises due to the lattice mismatch between the graphene and the Co on Ir(111). The intercalation regions exhibit an out-of-plane easy axis with an extremely high switching field, which surpasses the significant values reported for uncovered cobalt islands on Ir(111). Within the Moire unit cell of the intercalation regions, we observe a site-dependent variation of the local effective spin polarization. State-of-the-art first-principles calculations show that the origin of this variation is a site-dependent magnetization of the graphene: At top sites the graphene is coupled ferromagnetically to the cobalt underneath, while it is antiferromagnetically coupled at fcc and hcp sites. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.87.041403