Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 176601 (2009) [4 pages]Efficient Spin Transitions in Inelastic Electron Tunneling SpectroscopyReceived 28 April 2009; published 21 October 2009 The excitation of the spin degrees of freedom of an adsorbed atom by tunneling electrons is computed using strong coupling theory. Recent measurements [ Heinrich et al. Science 306 466 (2004)] reveal that electron currents in a magnetic system efficiently excite its magnetic moments. Our theory shows that the incoming electron spin strongly couples with that of the adsorbate so that memory of the initial spin state is lost, leading to large excitation efficiencies. First-principles transmissions are evaluated in quantitative agreement with the experiment. © 2009 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.176601
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.176601
PACS:
72.25.−b, 68.37.Ef, 72.10.−d, 73.23.−b
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