Electronic-structure-based investigation of magnetism in the Fe8 molecular magnet

We have performed density-functional-based electronic structure calculations on a single Fe8 molecular nanomagnet. Our calculated total moments and local moments are in excellent agreement with experiment. By including spin–orbit coupling we determine the easy, medium, and hard axes and find the ordering of the principle axes also agrees with experiment. From our calculated anisotropy Hamiltonian, we calculate the oscillations in the tunnel splittings and compare to the experimental results.