Out- versus in-plane magnetic anisotropy of free Fe and Co nanocrystals: Tight-binding and first-principles studies

We report tight-binding and density functional theory calculations of magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy (MAE) of free Fe (body-centered-cubic) and Co (face-centered-cubic) slabs and nanocrystals. The nanocrystals are truncated square pyramids which can be grown experimentally by deposition of metal on a SrTiO₃(001) substrate. For both elements our local analysis shows that the total MAE of the nanocrystals is largely dominated by the contribution of $(001)$ facets. However, while the easy axis of Fe(001) is out-of-plane, it is in-plane for Co(001). This has direct consequences on the magnetic reversal mechanism of the nanocrystals. Indeed, the very high uniaxial anisotropy of Fe nanocrystals makes them a much better potential candidate for magnetic storage devices.