Oscillatory magnetism of palladium nano-film depending on its film thickness: Density functional study

In order to investigate the magnetism of palladium nano-films, we performed first-principles calculations employing the highly precise full-potential linerized augmented plane-wave method based on density functional theory. The magnetism is investigated as a function of the thickness of the Pd thickness within a range of 1-21 monolayers. The magnetic stability of the Pd nano-films is calculated to depend delicately on its thickness. The ferromagnetic state is calculated to be stable for only some particular thicknesses of 1, 3, 9, and 15 layers. Invoking the ferromagnetism is not due to the localization at the surface but to the high density of states (DOS) at Fermi energy at the second layer from the surface