Optical and magneto-optical properties of gadolinium

We report calculations of the optical and magneto-optical properties of elemental rare earth gadolinium using the full potential linear augmented plane wave method and including spin-orbit coupling. Calculations are performed within the local spin density approximation (LSDA) and Coulomb corrected local spin density approximation (LSDA+U). While LSDA+U gives better agreement for density of states and magnetic moments, a comparison with the experimental data shows that both LSDA and LSDA+U are at par in representing the diagonal components of the optical conductivity. For the much smaller off-diagonal components, interestingly, the LSDA results have an edge over the LSDA+U results.