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Letter

Nature Materials 8, 563–567 (1 July 2009) | doi:10.1038/nmat2476

Kondo conductance in an atomic nanocontact from first principles

Procolo Lucignano , Riccardo Mazzarello , Alexander Smogunov , Michele Fabrizio & Erio Tosatti

The electrical conductance of atomic metal contacts represents a powerful tool for detecting nanomagnetism. Conductance reflects magnetism through anomalies at zero bias—generally with Fano line shapes—owing to the Kondo screening of the magnetic impurity bridging the contact.