THEORY OF THE MAGNETO-OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF TRANSITION METALS AND RARE EARTH COMPOUNDS

Abstract

~/e discuss the present status of the first-principles theory of magneto-optical properties of elemental metals and compounds. We succeeded in giving an accurate first-principles description of· the optical conductivity and, for the first time, of the magneto-optical Kerr spectrum. The progress made is illustrated by our results for the transition metals Fe and Ni. For Fe we find that the ab initio calculated magneto-optical Kerr rotation is in excellent agreement with experiments, while only reasonable agreement with experiment is found for Ni. Further investigations were carried out on several compounds with including FeCo, FeRh, FeV, GdFe, and GdCo. We find that there is in general no simple connection between specific spectral peaks and the electron band structure. But by calculating the magneto-optical spectra of selected chemical compositions and crystal structures, we are gradually building up a general picture of the relationship between magneto-optical spectra and atomic properties, such as the spin-orbit coupling strength and exchange splitting, as well as of influence of local atomic environments.