A study of the oxygen effect on the properties of magnetic anisotropy of Co nanowires on the Cu(210) surface: Ab initio approach

The magnetic properties of Co nanowires on pure and oxygen-reconstructed Cu(210) surfaces have been investigated using ab initio density functional theory methods. The performed calculations have demonstrated that the studied nanowires on a pure Cu(210) surface have a high magnetic moment and a low magnetic anisotropy energy. However, the analysis of the influence of the oxygen reconstruction of the copper surface has revealed that Co nanowires on the oxidized (2 $\times$ 1)O–Cu(210) surface are characterized by a significant increase in the magnetic anisotropy energy due to the change in the projection of the orbital angular momentum of Co atoms after the oxygen adsorption on the surface. In this case, the oxygen reconstruction of the copper surface leads to a change of the magnetization easy axis direction, which is consistent with the experimental data on the self-organizing growth of Co nanowires on the nitrided Cu(210) surface.