Electric Field Tunable Magnetism at C6H6‑Adsorbed Fe3O4(001) Surface

The use of molecular modification on magnetism has gained considerable interest in the development of multifunctional molecular spintronics. Such hybrid structures of nonmagnetic molecules and ferromagnetic metals manifest great promises of producing novel electric and magnetic features. The external electric field effect on the magnetism of C6H6-adsorbed Fe3O4(001) surface is elucidates by density functional theory calculations. The reduced magnetic moments of partial octahedral Fe atoms in the first layer break the spherical spatial spin density distribution. Such modification that is independent of the direction of electric field can be attributed to the charge redistribution as a result of screening effect, which changes orbital occupancy in unpaired octahedral Fe-d electrons near E F accompanied by a spin flip. Furthermore, octahedral Fe atom underneath C atom changes only as the applied field is large enough. Additionally, it is shown that the study of modulation on surface magnetism through external electric field is expected to excite a new area in molecular spintronics, such as the potential applications in electrically controlled magnetic data storage.