Magnetic character of holmium atom adsorbed on platinum surface

The study of single magnetic rare-earth (RE) atoms adsorbed on metallic and insulating solid surfaces recently became a subject of intense research. These “single-atom” magnets serve as benchmarks in a quest for the ultimate size limit of magnetic information storage. The major advance of observing the magnetic remanence was recently reported for the Ho adatom on MgO substrate. The stable magnetic quantum state of the adatom was found on the time scale of 1500 s at 10 K temperature.

¹Institute of Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Na Slovance 2, 182 21 Prague 8, Czech Republic
²University of Hamburg