Magnetocrystalline anisotropy and orbital moments in transition-metal compounds

Abstract

The magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy and anisotropy of the orbital angular momentum have been calculated from first prinicples for Co and for a variety of intermetallic compounds including ${\mathrm{YCo}}_{5}$. For all compounds the predicted easy axes are in agreement with experiment. A strong correlation between the anisotropy of the orbital angular momentum and the energy is found for the compounds that do not contain Pt. For those that do contain Pt, Pt is shown to contribute significantly to the anisotropy energy.