@article { ISI:000236264200006, title = {Scanning tunnelling microscopy of surfaces of half-metals: an ab-initio study on NiMnSb(001)}, journal = {JOURNAL OF PHYSICS D-APPLIED PHYSICS}, volume = {39}, number = {5}, year = {2006}, month = {MAR 7}, pages = {797-802}, abstract = {We present a first-principles Study of the unreconstructed (001) surfaces of the half-metallic ferromagnet NiMnSb. Both terminations (MnSb and Ni) are considered. We find that half-metallicity is lost at the surfaces. After a discussion of the geometric relaxations and the spin-polarized surface band structure, we focus on topography images which are expected to be found with spin-polarized scanning tunnelling microscopy. For the MnSb-terrninated surface we find that only the Sb atoms are visible, reflecting a geometric buckling caused by relaxations. For the Ni-terminated surface we find a strong contrast between the images of forward and reverse tip-sample-bias of 0.5 eV, as well as a stripe-like image for reverse bias. We interpret these findings in terms of highly directional Surface states which are formed in the spin-down gap region.}, issn = {0022-3727}, doi = {10.1088/0022-3727/39/5/S05}, author = {Lezaic, M. and P. Mavropoulos and Bihlmayer, G. and Blugel, S} }