First-principles study of the electronic structure and local moment interactions in PuAm alloy

Abstract

Expected to provide a clue about the origin of zero moment in the bulk phase of Plutonium, Pu 1-xAm x alloys have attracted a great attention, in which upon doping the system transforms from the Kondo lattice to the diluted impurity limit. To understand the electronic structure and the magnetic properties of Pu in different crystal environments, we performed fully self-consistent first-principles calculations of the PuAm system based on the local density approximation (LDA) combined with static (LDA+U) and dynamic corrections (LDA+DMFT) for on-site electron correlations. The electronic structure strongly depends on the level of approximation for correlation effects. The exchange interactions between Pu 5f electrons and the Kondo screening strength were estimated and compared, which provide a new insight to Pu magnetism. © 2008 Materials Research Society.