8 SCIENTIFIC HIGHLIGHT OF THE MONTH: ”Relativistic Effects and Disordered Local Moments in Magnets” Relativistic Effects and Disordered Local Moments in Magnets

A brief review of the ‘disordered local moment’ (DLM) theory of magnetism at finite temperatures is given. This has recently been enhanced so that it includes relativistic (R) effects such as spin-orbit coupling. The relevance of the R-DLM theory for providing an ab-initio account of the temperature dependence of magnetic properties including magnetotransport is stressed. Magnetic anisotropy is discussed in particular. In this context a new magnetic torque based method is described and demonstrated with an application to iron nanoclusters on a platinum substrate. The R-DLM theory is illustrated by a study of the temperature dependence of the magnetic anisotropy of the technologically important FePt alloy in both its magnetically hard L10-ordered and soft cubic compositionally disordered phases. Acknowledgements: It is a pleasure to acknowledge the collaboration of many colleagues on the various aspects occurring in this selective review: in particular S.Bornemann, J.Minar and H.Ebert on the magnetic torque calculations on deposited clusters (see [1]) and B.Gyorffy, S.Ostanin, S.S.A.Razee, L.Szunyogh, A.Buruzs, L.Udvardi and P.Weinberger on the development of the R-DLM theory (see [2–4]).