Magnetism induced by nonmagnetic dopant in Li2O, Na2O, K2O and Rb2O: first-principles calculations

First-principles calculations based on the tight-binding linear muffin-tin orbital (TB-LMTO) method are performed to investigate the occurrence of spin polarization in the alkali-metal oxides (M2O) [M: Li, Na, K, Rb] in antifluorite (anti-CaF2-type) structure with non-magnetic sp (F, Cl, Br and I) dopants. The calculations reveal that non-magnetic substitutional doping at cation site can induce stable half-metallic ferromagnetic ground state in I2-VI compounds. Total energy calculations show that the antifluorite ferromagnetic state is energetically more stable than the antifluorite non-magnetic state at equilibrium volume. Ground state properties such as equilibrium lattice constant and bulk modulus were calculated. The calculated magnetic moment is found to be 2.00 μB per dopant atom.