Empirical band calculations of the optical properties ofd- band metals. IV. Optical absorption, photoemission, and magneto-optical properties of ferromagnetic nickel

An empirically adjusted band structure for ferromagnetic Ni has been constructed using a combined interpolation scheme. The principal adjustments consist of narrowing the d band by {~}25% and raising it upwards in energy relative to the sp manifold in order to reproduce recent angle-resolved photoemission data. The exchange splitting is chosen to reproduce the experimental magneton number. This yields an exchange splitting (Δₑₓ=0.310 eV) and a Stoner gap (δ=0.100 eV) in excellent agreement with other photo-emission data. The bands are then used to compute the optical absorption and magneto-optical response with full inclusion of momentum matrix elements. After inclusion of lifetime effects, the optical absorption is found to be in good agreement with experiment over the ω<30 eV photon energy range, permitting reliable identification of structures and their →k-space locations. The calculated magneto-optical response is in good agreement with experiment in the range ω<6 eV, but only for the energy location of structures. The empirical adjustments are compared with recent calculations of self-energy corrections due to hole-hole correlation effects.