title: Bound on anisotropy in itinerant ferromagnets from random impurities.
abstract: We calculate the anisotropy energy of a single-domain ferromagnetic particle in which the only source of anisotropy is the presence of nonmagnetic impurities. Such anisotropy has easy-axis and easy-plane contributions, with random orientations of the axes. Typically the anisotropy energy is of order N1/2plankv/tau(so), where N is the number of electrons in the ferromagnetic particle and tau(so) is the spin-orbit time.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-2501, USA.
authors.forename: Piet W
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Brouwer
authors.forename: Denis A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Gorokhov