Main

Atomic-scale contacts can be fabricated by techniques such as scanning tunnelling microscopy13 or the use of electromigrated break junctions (EBJs)14, where the size of a macroscopic contact between two leads is reduced until they are in contact through only a few atoms and, eventually, through only one. The conductance of metallic monatomic contacts is known to be around 2G0, where G0 = e2/h is the spin-resolved quantum of conductance13 (e being the elementary charge and h Planck’s constant). To identify the atomic contacts, histograms are constructed from the evolution of the conductance recorded during the breaking of different contacts (Fig. 1a, b). The position of the first peak of these histograms is identified as the conductance of the monatomic contact. For iron, cobalt and nickel, the conductance is larger than 2G0 owing to the contribution of the sp and d orbitals to the transmission15,16,17.

Figure 1: Conductance of a monatomic contact.
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a, Example of a trace where we record the conductance while stretching a nickel wire using a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) at 4.2 K. Inset, model of a monatomic contact. b, Conductance histograms constructed for iron, cobalt and nickel from thousands of such traces. The position of the first peak of in each histogram corresponds to the conductance of the monatomic contact. c, Differential conductance curves recorded at the monatomic contact as a function of the applied voltage. A characteristic resonance appears at small bias that fits the Fano line shape. All possible symmetries are found in the spectroscopy of iron, cobalt and nickel contacts, and the width of the resonance is the main difference between the spectra of the three materials. This width is proportional to the Kondo temperature.

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We have studied the low-temperature conductance characteristics of hundreds of atomic-scale contacts of the three transition-metal ferromagnets iron, cobalt and nickel using a home-built STM. More than the 80% of the differential conductance (dI/dV) curves at the monatomic contact show peaks or dips around zero bias such as those shown in Fig. 1c, which are very similar to those observed in STM spectroscopy of single magnetic adatoms on non-magnetic surfaces9,10,11. Thus, as in the case of these Kondo systems, we can also fit our dI/dV curves to the sum of a flat component, g0, and a Fano-like resonance that typically amounts for 10% of the signal:

Here ε =  (eV - εs)/kBTK is the bias shifted with respect to the centre of the resonance, εs, and normalized by the natural width of the resonance, kBTK; TK is the Kondo temperature; q is the dimensionless Fano parameter that determines the symmetry of the curve; A is the amplitude of the feature; and kB is Boltzmann’s constant.

It is clear from the dI/dV characteristics in Fig. 1c that the width of the Fano feature is different for each material. This is confirmed by statistical analysis of the data. Figure 2 shows histograms of TK obtained from fitting our conductance curves for hundreds of different iron, cobalt and nickel monatomic contacts. Notably, these histograms follow a log-normal distribution; that is, the natural logarithm of TK is normally distributed. Because many different atomic configurations result in monatomic contacts, their electronic properties, such as conductance (Fig. 1b), density of states and the associated energy scales, are expected to be normally distributed. Instead, a normal distribution of log TK can only be understood if TK can be expressed as the exponential of normally distributed quantities. The Kondo model12 naturally relates TK to the exponential of the typical energy scales in the problem.

Figure 2: Histograms of inferred Kondo temperatures for iron, cobalt and nickel.
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The histograms are constructed from more than 200 fittings and normalized to the total number of curves fitted. The continuous lines show the fits of the data to log-normal distributions of TK with a different most probable value for each material.

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Fitting the histograms to a log-normal distribution yields most frequent values for the resonance widths in the different materials corresponding to TK = 90 K, 120 K and 280 K for iron, cobalt and nickel, respectively, following the same trend ( <  < ) for these chemical species when deposited as adatoms on non-magnetic surfaces18. In simple terms, the Kondo temperature decreases as the size of the screened magnetic moment increases, as we change from nickel to cobalt to iron. The Kondo temperature of cobalt nanocontacts is very similar to the one reported in ref. 11 for cobalt in Cu(100) probed using a STM in the contact regime.

In addition to the statistical analysis described above, we measured the temperature evolution of the Kondo features for a single contact. To preserve the atomic stability of the junction while changing the temperature19, we used an EBJ such as the one shown in the inset of Fig. 3b. It is important to note that in this alternative implementation we observe exactly the same Fano resonances, with the same distribution of Kondo temperatures, as we obtained in the STM experiments using nickel and cobalt samples. In all the cases, we see a reduction of the amplitude of the Fano features as the temperature increases, as shown in Fig. 3a for the case of cobalt. In Fig. 3b we plot A(T), as defined in equation (1), as a function of T on a logarithmic scale. The curve so obtained has a low-temperature plateau followed by a linear decay, very similar to that of quantum dots and molecules in the Kondo regime4,5,6,20.

Figure 3: Evolution of the Fano resonances with increasing temperature.
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a, Characteristics of differential conductance versus bias voltage for a cobalt atomic contact, showing how the Fano resonance disappears as the temperature is increased. b, The amplitude of the Kondo resonance from a decreases logarithmically with the temperature. Inset, an artificially coloured example of a lithographic device for the EBJ experiments (before electromigration); the cobalt junction is blue. The atomic contacts created by this method are suitable for studying the temperature dependence of the Fano resonance.

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In summary, our atomic contacts fabricated with two different methods show the same dI/dV curves (Fig. 1c), the same chemical trends (Fig. 2) and the same temperature evolution (Fig. 3a, b) as other standard, chemically inhomogeneous Kondo systems. This indicates that the contact atom(s) in nanocontacts of iron, cobalt and nickel are in the Kondo regime. This is unexpected for two reasons. First, the Kondo effect has always been associated with chemically inhomogeneous systems containing at least two kinds of atom: those where the localized level resides and those providing the itinerant electrons. Here the same chemical species hosts both the itinerant states and the local magnetic moments. Second, in most reports on the Kondo effect, the itinerant electrons are not spin-polarized, as a large spin polarization is expected to destroy the effect. The observation of the Kondo effect in a quantum dot configuration such as a C60 molecule21 or a carbon nanotube22 contacted with ferromagnetic leads has been justified by the oppositely directed spin polarizations in the electrodes, in agreement with refs 23, 24. Although the situation regarding the magnetization of the leads might be similar in our system, we argue that the Kondo effect is still possible even if there is no domain wall pinned in the contact.

Being in the Kondo regime implies that the atoms at the contact must host, at least, a localized d-electron level whose magnetic moment is screened as a result of antiferromagnetic coupling to the sp conduction electrons. We can show how local-moment formation and antiferromagnetic coupling occur in nickel nanocontacts in the following way (the cases of iron and cobalt can be understood on similar grounds). The mean-field solution of the Anderson model25, which describes a localized d level, with energy εd , on-site repulsion U and hybridization with the itinerant sp electrons, Vsp–d, defines the conditions for the formation of a local moment in such a d level. The model can also be used to derive the antiferromagnetic sd exchange coupling, (ref. 26), which arises from the sp–d hybridization term. Here we used the local spin-density approximation (LSDA) to density functional theory and its generalization LSDA+U as the mean field to determine the formation of a local moment and its antiferromagnetic coupling to the sp carriers. We consider both monostrand chains and nanocontacts. Their smaller atomic coordination, compared with that of the bulk, results in a stronger electronic localization and a larger magnetic moment per atom (values of 1.17 Bohr magnetons, compared with 0.6 Bohr magnetons in the bulk, were obtained using LSDA). This favours the appearance of the Kondo effect. In Fig. 4a, b, we show the LSDA bands obtained for the nickel chain. Out of the six minority-spin bands crossing the Fermi level, the two degenerate E2 bands are the narrowest, hosting highly localized electrons. These are the bands that are less well described by the LSDA because of the inherent self-interaction problem of this approximation.

Figure 4: Electronic structure for a nickel chain and a nickel nanocontact.
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a, LSDA minority-spin energy bands for a monostrand nickel chain, where the wavevector k runs over the first Brillouin zone. The bands are labelled according to their symmetry group: the E1 and E2 bands (d-band like, doubly degenerate and decoupled from the s band) and the A1 or band (hybridized with the s band). The lattice constant is 2.09 Å. b, As in a, but for majority-spin electrons. The yellow background indicates occupied states. c, LSDA+U minority-spin results for the total DOS and the DOS projected on the orbital for a tip atom of a nickel nanocontact, with U =  3 eV. d, As in c, but for majority-spin electrons.

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We modelled actual nanocontacts with two identical pyramids facing each other in the [001] direction. As previously done for chains27, and to avoid the self-interaction problem, we computed the electronic structure of the nanocontact using LSDA+U. In Fig. 4c, d, we show the total density of states (DOS) projected on a tip atom and the DOS projected on the corresponding orbitals for both the minority (Fig. 4c) and the majority (Fig. 4d) spins (here we have set U = 3 eV). In general, solutions obtained for values of U ranging from 3 to 5 eV also show that the orbital, forming one of the E2 bands in chains, hosts an integer local magnetic moment. Different geometries may favour the formation of the local moment in other strongly localized orbitals. The hybridization of the orbital with the surrounding sp orbitals results in antiferromagnetic kinetic exchange26. We estimate that  ≈ 1 eV, taking εd ≈ 5 eV, |Vsp–d|2 ≈ 2 eV and Ueff ≈ 8 eV from our LSDA+U calculations, where Ueff is the spin splitting of the orbital (Supplementary Information).

We note that, in contrast to the contact atom(s), the intra-atomic sp–d hybridization vanishes for bulk atoms owing to the very small anisotropy of the crystal environment. This makes the antiferromagnetic coupling larger in the contact than in the bulk. This coupling competes with the ferromagnetic coupling , which we estimate from the splitting of the sp band at the boundary of the Brillouin zone for chains to be ∼0.2 eV (Fig. 4a, b). Thus, an overall antiferromagnetic coupling between d electrons and sp conduction electrons is possible in nickel nanocontacts. Additionally, the local moment, m, responsible for the Kondo effect is subject to the ferromagnetic coupling Jdd to the neighbouring atoms, and this interaction also competes with the antiferromagnetic sp–d coupling:

Here the mi are the local moments of the neighbouring atoms and Ss is the spin of the s electrons. In ref. 28, the coupling Jdd was calculated for iron, cobalt and nickel by implementing the magnetic force theorem with a LSDA ground state. This method yields values for the spin-wave dispersion of the materials that compare well with experiment29, and gives Jdd = 19 meV, 15 meV and 2.7 meV for iron, cobalt and nickel, respectively. Thus, Jdd is significantly smaller than .

The Kondo effect in nanocontacts is favoured by three factors. First, a local moment forms in the contact atoms because of their smaller coordination. Second, the reduced symmetry of the contact, compared with the bulk, enhances the intra-atomic contribution to the sp–d hybridization and, thus, the antiferromagnetic coupling . Third, the smaller coordination also reduces the influence of the direct ferromagnetic dd coupling with neighbouring atoms. As a result, the local moment formed in the contact is antiferromagnetically coupled to the sp itinerant electrons and results in the Kondo effect in this system, in contradiction to conventional wisdom.

Methods Summary

For the statistical results on the Kondo parameters, we used a home-made STM at 4.2 K to fabricate the contacts by indentation between two pieces of metal13. For the temperature-dependence measurements, the contacts were produced by the controlled electromigration at 4.2 K of 100-nm-wide junctions fabricated by electron beam lithography19. In both cases, the spectroscopic curves were obtained by the addition of an a.c. voltage with a peak-power amplitude of 1 mV and a frequency of 1 kHz to the d.c. bias voltage to allow the lock-in detection of the differential conductance.

Online Methods

Fabrication of atomic-scale contacts by scanning tunnelling microscopy

Two pieces of metal wire of 0.1-mm diameter were cleaned and sonicated in acetone and isopropanol. These pieces were mounted in a home-built STM. The set-up was pumped down to high vacuum and immersed in a liquid helium bath until the temperature reached 4.2 K. The two pieces of wire were brought into contact and then pulled apart until the contact was of atomic dimension and, finally, until only one atom formed the contact13. Strong indentation before the formation of every contact ensured the cleanliness of the atomic contacts. The histograms obtained by this technique (Fig. 1a) show similar results to the ones obtained by the mechanically controlled break junction technique, where the surfaces brought into contact are created under cryogenic conditions.

Fabrication of atomic-scale contacts using EBJs

As a first step, a small junction about 100 nm wide was fabricated from cobalt using electron beam lithography and electron beam evaporation over a silicon dioxide substrate. To make the junction suitable for contact by macroscopic probes, two gold electrodes are deposited over the edges of the junction in a second lithography step, following the procedure described in ref. 19. The samples are then placed in a probe station that was pumped down and immersed in a liquid helium bath until the sample reached a temperature close to 4.2 K. Under these conditions, the controlled electromigration process14,19 was performed, decreasing the size of the junction to the atomic scale.