Magnetic silicon fullerene

Abstract

A metal-encapsulating silicon fullerene, Eu@Si₂₀, has been predicted by density functional theory to be by far the most stable fullerene-like silicon structure. The Eu@Si₂₀ structure is a dodecahedron with D_2h symmetry in which the europium atom occupies the center site. The calculated results show that the europium atom has a large magnetic moment of nearly 7.0 Bohr magnetons. In addition, it was found that a stable “pearl necklace” nanowire, constructed by concatenating a series of Eu@Si₂₀ units, with the central europium atom, retains the high spin moment. The magnetic structure of the nanowire indicates potential applications in the fields of spintronics and high-density magnetic storage.