Revisiting magnetism of capped Au and ZnO nanoparticles: Surface band structure and atomic orbital with giant magnetic moment

In this article we review the exotic magnetism of nanoparticles (NPs) formed by substances that are not magnetic in bulk as described with generality in Section 1 . In particular, the intrinsic character of the magnetism observed on capped Au and ZnO NPs is analysed. X‐ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) analysis has shown that the magnetic moments are intrinsic and lie in the Au and Zn atoms, respectively, as analysed in Section 2 , where the general theoretical ideas are also revisited. Since impurity atoms bonded to the surface act as donor or acceptor of electrons that occupy the surface states, the anomalous magnetic response is analysed in terms of the surface band in Section 3 . Finally, Section 4 summarizes our last theoretical proposal.