Assa Aravindh Sasikala
Devi
*a,
Johannes
Nokelainen
bc,
Bernardo
Barbiellini
bc,
Murali
Devaraj
d,
Matti
Alatalo
a and
Arun
Bansil
c
aNano and Molecular Systems Research Unit, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 8000, FI-90014, Finland. E-mail: Assa.Sasikaladevi@oulu.fi
bLappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT), FI-53851 Lappeenranta, Finland
cDepartment of Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
dDepartment of Sciences, Indian Institute of Information Technology Design and Manufacturing, Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh 518002, India
First published on 14th July 2022
We present an in-depth discussion of the magnetic ground state of α′′-Fe16N2 within the framework of the density functional theory (DFT). The exchange–correlation effects are treated using a variety of schemes, including the local-spin-density approximation, the generalized-gradient approximation, and the Strongly-Constrained-and-Appropriately-Normed (SCAN) scheme. We also delineate effects of adding an on-site interaction parameter U on the Fe sites. Among all the schemes considered, only SCAN+U is found to capture the surprisingly large magnetization density in α′′-Fe16N2 that has been observed experimentally. Our study shows how the combination of SCAN and self-interaction corrections applied on different Fe sites through the parameter U can reproduce both the correct equilibrium volume and the giant magnetization density of α′′-Fe16N2.
Recent Density Functional Theory (DFT) studies of α′′-Fe16N2 based on the Generalized Gradient Approximation (GGA) corrected by the Hubbard parameter U have been reported by Bhattacharjee et al.,20 Islam et al.,21 and Stoeckl et al.22 These investigations and other DFT+U calculations19,23–27 show, as expected, that the Fe magnetic moment increases with the strength of correlation effects described by U. However, increasing U expands the equilibrium volume when the geometry is optimized,22 so that the magnetization density Ms does not increase beyond the Slater–Pauling limit of 2.45 T.
Here, we show that a DFT+U scheme based on the Strongly-Constrained-and-Appropriately-Normed (SCAN) method28 can avoid the spurious volume expansion encountered in GGA+U, which is also the case for the LSDA+U results of Ji et al.19 SCAN has the satisfactory feature that it satisfies all the 17 exact constraints appropriate to a semilocal functional,28 which is not the case for the GGA.29 For these reasons,30 SCAN has been shown to be systematically superior to GGA and it can be even better than the hybrid functionals,31–33 which present difficulties, for example, in bulk metals34 and cuprate superconductors.35 SCAN+U,36 however, correctly captures the giant magnetization density of α′′-Fe16N2 beyond the Slater–Pauling limit, despite its somewhat larger computational cost compared to GGA+U.
Strong Coulomb correlation effects are described within the DFT+U scheme as implemented by Dudarev et al.40 The DFT+U scheme is a simplified version of the self-interaction correction,41 where the correction U acts only on the localized 3d states, and often results in splitting the metallic energy bands into upper and lower Hubbard bands descriptive of Mott–Hubbard physics.42–44 We also use the SCAN meta-GGA scheme,28 which has been shown to provide an improved description of correlated materials such as α-Mn,45 cuprates,46–49 nickelates50 spinel LiMn2O4 cathode material,51 iridates,52 and 3d perovskite oxides.53
Within the PAW pseudopotential scheme, we describe Fe and N with 8 and 5 valence electrons, respectively. A plane wave cut-off energy of 600 eV is used.
k-Points within the Brillouin zone were generated using a uniform 8 × 8 × 8 Monkhorst–Pack54 mesh. Electronic energy minimization was performed with a tolerance of 10−6 eV. The conjugate-gradient algorithm was used to relax atomic structures until all residual forces converged to within 0.005 eV Å−1. A Gaussian smearing width of 0.05 eV (FWHM) was applied to the electronic states. In order to obtain more accurate total energies and density of states (DOS), the tetrahedron method with Blöchl corrections55 was used. Collinear spins were used in most calculations but in order to compute the magneto-crystalline anisotropy (MCA), non-collinear calculations were also performed.
Bulk Fe in the α phase assumes BCC structure with the easy-magnetization axis oriented along the (001) axis.62 Insertion of N expands the volume and brings the easy magnetization axis parallel to the c-axis, producing the MCA. Bonding with N also increases the Fe magnetic moments to the order of 3μB, which points to the need for invoking substantial corrections beyond the GGA. The experimental α′′-Fe16N2 crystal structure7,63 is body-centered tetragonal (space group I4/mmm) with lattice parameters of a = b = 5.72 Å and c = 6.29 Å. The experimental structure shown in Fig. 1 can be seen as a distorted version of a 2 × 2 × 2 supercell of BCC Fe with two N atoms occupying the octahedral interstitial positions. The Fe atoms can be divided into three inequivalent Wyckoff sites 8h, 4e and 4d by their coordination with respect to the N atoms. The Fe-8h and 4e atoms form an octahedron around the N atoms (Fig. 1), where the Fe-8h atoms occupy the equatorial sites and the Fe-4e atoms occupy the axial sites. The Fe-4d atoms are not coordinated with the N atoms. This cell size is sufficient for describing the ferromagnetic phase α′′-Fe16N2. However, larger supercells are needed for more complex orders, as is the case for magnetic phases of the cuprates, etc.48
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Fig. 1 Equilibrium structure of Fe16N2. Fe atoms occupy three inequivalent Wyckoff sites labeled 8h (golden),4e (blue) and 4d (pink). |
We first carried out calculations using the fixed experimental volume to ascertain if the giant magnetization might be possible to capture in this way. The results for the LSDA, GGA, GGA+U, SCAN, and SCAN+U corrections are summarized in Table 1. The used U values have been computed by Lai et al.26 using formulae based on screened Coulomb integrals involving the densities of the Fe 3d electrons and have the following values at different atomic sites: Fe-8h: 1.36 eV, Fe-4e: 1.088 eV, and Fe-4d: 3.94 eV. Interestingly, the values of Ms do not exceed the Slater–Pauling limit12 of 2.45 T, even for GGA+U or SCAN, which are expected to improve the description of localized d-states substantially with respect to LSDA and GGA. Only the SCAN+U is found to correctly predict Ms values above the Slater–Pauling limit, thus capturing the subtle balance between tendencies of electrons to form itinerant or localized states in the material.10
Method | Total moment (μB) | M s (T) |
---|---|---|
LSDA | 36.49 | 2.21 |
GGA | 39.05 | 2.21 |
GGA+U | 42.75 | 2.42 |
SCAN | 42.66 | 2.41 |
SCAN+U | 45.82 | 2.59 |
Next, we fully relaxed all structures in order to understand the connection between the equilibrium volume and magnetic properties. The LSDA produced a total magnetization of 36.49μB per unit cell, which corresponds to an average magnetic moment of 2.28μB per Fe atom. This value is significantly lower than the LSDA-based Fe magnetic moment in BCC Fe, indicating that LSDA encounters problems here in contrast to the case of pristine Fe.39 The equilibrium volume obtained by LSDA (179.24 Å3) is substantially smaller than the experimental value of 205.24 Å3. In view of these shortcomings of the LSDA, we only report the results of our calculations based on the LSDA+U in Table 2.19 The gradient corrections in the GGA improve the volume, but both the volume and the magnetization still remain small compared to the experimental value.18 SCAN yields an increase in the magnetization Ms above the GGA value, but the equilibrium volume slightly shrinks with respect to the GGA. The GGA+U gives volume in excellent agreement with experiment, but it does not improve the magnetization density significantly. Finally, SCAN+U yields reasonable agreement with the experiment both for the volume, magnetization density and the c/a = 1.08 ratio, which is close to the corresponding experimental value of 1.10. The LSDA SCAN+U results in Table 2 thus explain the anomalously large magnetization density. Our calculations in accordance with the LSDA+U method of ref. 19 (see Table 2) are also found to correctly predict the equilibrium volume and the Ms value above the Slater–Pauling limit, but the c/a ratio from LSDA+U is very far from the experimental value. Interestingly, the Heyd, Scuseria and Ernzerhof (HSE) hybrid-functional method31–33 gives a Ms value above the Slater–Pauling limit, but the equilibrium volume is smaller than the experimental value.
Method | Lattice parameters (Å) | V (Å3) | Total moment (μB) | m: individual atom (μB) | M s (T) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
a | c | Fe-8h | Fe-4e | Fe-4d | N | ||||
GGA | 5.67 | 6.24 | 200.61 | 38.71 | 2.36 | 2.15 | 2.83 | −0.06 | 2.25 |
GGA+U | 5.72 | 6.29 | 205.80 | 42.48 | 2.54 | 2.35 | 3.22 | −0.07 | 2.39 |
SCAN | 5.68 | 6.14 | 198.09 | 41.83 | 2.57 | 2.42 | 2.92 | −0.05 | 2.45 |
SCAN+U | 5.75 | 6.19 | 204.66 | 45.51 | 2.75 | 2.63 | 3.27 | −0.05 | 2.58 |
HSE33 | 5.62 | 6.23 | 200.46 | 45.50 | 2.82 | 2.74 | 2.95 | −0.05 | 2.64 |
LSDA+U | 5.83 | 6.02 | 204.91 | 46.28 | 3.47 | 2.66 | 1.99 | −0.06 | 2.63 |
The computed highest Fe magnetic moment is located on Fe-4d, while the neutron diffraction experiments18 find that Fe-8h carries the largest magnetization. We now discuss if another SCAN+U correction could possibly improve the description of the magnetic moment distribution on the Fe atoms. Motivated by the agreement between the model of Ji et al.19 and the results of neutron diffraction experiments,18 we have carried out a parametric SCAN+U(Fe-8h) study in which the Hubbard U is only applied to the Fe-8h position. The results are given in Table 3 and show a stronger magnetic moment at the Fe-8h position in better agreement with experiments.18 The Fe-8h magnetic moment increases monotonically from 2.67μB to 3.24μB with increasing U values. The average magnetic moment reaches 2.93μB for U(Fe-8h) value of 4 eV. The Fe-4d site, which is situated outside of the octahedral cluster, preserves magnetic moment of about 2.8μB irrespective of the change in the U(Fe-8h) value. Interestingly, the Fe-4e magnetic moment is the lowest and reaches a minimum of about 2.8μB around U(Fe-8h) = 2 eV. The equilibrium volume and the magnetization density as a function of the Hubbard parameter applied to the Fe-8h sites are presented in Fig. 2. The experimental volume is reached at U(Fe-8h) = 2.5 eV corresponding to a magnetization density of 2.54 T. Fig. 2 shows that the magnetization density saturates at around 2.58 T compared to the limiting value of 2.45 T predicted by the Slater–Pauling theory.12 The local magnetic moments and the average magnetic moment per Fe ion as a function of U(Fe-8h) are presented in Fig. 3. The moments at Fe-8h sites are seen to increase steadily with increasing U. The moments of the Fe-4d atoms, that are located outside the Fe–N clusters, decrease and stabilize with increasing U(Fe-8h). Interestingly, the Fe-4e atoms that lie inside the Fe–N cluster also show the same trend as the Fe-4d atoms. Nevertheless, it is clear that the SCAN+U scheme, which includes self-interaction corrections within the SCAN formalism, predicts average magnetic moment of about 2.8μB per Fe, which is larger than the Slater–Pauling limit for itinerant ferromagnetism.
U (eV) | Lattice parameters (Å) | V (Å3) | Total moment (μB) | m: individual atom (μB) | M s (T) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
a | c | Fe-8h | Fe-4e | Fe-4d | N | ||||
0.5 | 5.69 | 6.15 | 199.47 | 42.52 | 2.67 | 2.42 | 2.89 | −0.034 | 2.48 |
1.0 | 5.72 | 6.13 | 200.45 | 42.87 | 2.75 | 2.38 | 2.85 | −0.036 | 2.49 |
1.5 | 5.73 | 6.13 | 201.11 | 43.24 | 2.84 | 2.34 | 2.82 | −0.040 | 2.50 |
2.0 | 5.76 | 6.11 | 202.54 | 43.78 | 2.92 | 2.32 | 2.81 | −0.041 | 2.52 |
2.5 | 5.79 | 6.11 | 204.89 | 44.82 | 3.02 | 2.36 | 2.81 | −0.033 | 2.54 |
3.0 | 5.83 | 6.13 | 208.03 | 46.03 | 3.12 | 2.43 | 2.85 | −0.021 | 2.57 |
3.5 | 5.85 | 6.14 | 210.19 | 46.67 | 3.19 | 2.44 | 2.86 | −0.019 | 2.58 |
4.0 | 5.87 | 6.13 | 211.62 | 46.90 | 3.24 | 2.41 | 2.85 | −0.028 | 2.58 |
4.5 | 5.89 | 6.14 | 213.05 | 47.21 | 3.28 | 2.39 | 2.85 | −0.036 | 2.58 |
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Fig. 3 Computed magnetic moments on various Fe sites and the average magnetic moment per unit cell using the SCAN+U scheme as a function of U(Fe-8h), where U is applied only to the Fe-8h sites. |
To visualize the electronic structure, we have calculated the density of states (DOS) and the partial DOSs of Fe16N2, see Fig. 4. The three panels of Fig. 4 present results based on GGA, SCAN and SCAN+U(Fe-8h) at U = 2.5 eV. The exchange splitting between the spin-up and spin-down states is seen to increase with the introduction of enhanced correlation effects: for example, the exchange splitting is larger in SCAN compared to the GGA and the addition of U(Fe-8h) further increases the exchange splitting mostly by localizing the eg 3d states of Fe-8h. We have also carried out computations in which spin-orbit coupling effects are included for U(Fe-8h) = 2.5 eV to obtain an MCA energy of 1.3 meV per formula unit, which is consistent with the experimental values reported by Stoeckl et al.22 The magnetic moments were not significantly affected by spin–orbit coupling effects.
Finally, we have performed further SCAN+U calculations in which U is applied uniformly on all Fe sites. Stoeckl et al.22 refer to such a calculation as the baseline case, and the calculations motivated by the results of Ji et al. as the high-moment case because it gave the highest total magnetic moment within their GGA+U scheme. However, Table 4 shows that in the case of SCAN+U both the experimental volume and the giant magnetization density of 2.58 T are recovered for U = 1.5 eV. We have also considered a calculation applying U = 2 eV on Fe 8h and 4e only. The equilibrium volume in this case is 208.55 Å3 and the magnetic moments are 2.953, 2.834 and 2.858μB for 8h, 4e and 4d, respectively. These values are in better agreement with the experimental values given by Hang et al.64 while Ms = 2.59 T remains high. This result highlights the robustness of the SCAN+U scheme: variations in the value of U lead to different combinations of individual magnetic moments, but the experimental average magnetization and volume are obtained in all cases. This is important since the experimental analysis of the magnetic moment distributions remains quite challenging.64,65
U (eV) | Lattice parameters (Å) | V (Å3) | Total moment (μB) | m: individual atom (μB) | M s (T) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
a | c | Fe-8h | Fe-4e | Fe-4d | N | ||||
0.5 | 5.70 | 6.15 | 200.33 | 42.89 | 2.64 | 2.53 | 2.95 | −0.037 | 2.49 |
1.0 | 5.72 | 6.15 | 201.75 | 43.66 | 2.69 | 2.58 | 2.98 | −0.046 | 2.51 |
1.5 | 5.78 | 6.17 | 205.96 | 45.71 | 2.83 | 2.73 | 3.05 | −0.034 | 2.58 |
2.0 | 5.81 | 6.19 | 209.42 | 47.09 | 2.92 | 2.82 | 3.11 | −0.041 | 2.62 |
2.5 | 5.85 | 6.21 | 212.38 | 47.90 | 2.97 | 2.88 | 3.16 | −0.033 | 2.62 |
3.0 | 5.88 | 6.25 | 216.23 | 49.13 | 3.05 | 2.96 | 3.24 | −0.021 | 2.64 |
3.5 | 5.91 | 6.28 | 220.19 | 50.15 | 3.10 | 3.04 | 3.30 | −0.019 | 2.65 |
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