  Fullerenes have several advantages as potential materials for organic
spintronics. Through a theoretical first-principles study, we report that
fullerene C$_{60}$ adsorption can induce a magnetic reconstruction in a Ni(111)
surface and expose the merits of the reconstructed C$_{60}$/Ni(111)
\emph{spinterface} for molecular spintronics applications. Surface
reconstruction drastically modifies the magnetic properties at both sides of
the C$_{60}$/Ni interface. Three outstanding properties of the reconstructed
structure are revealed, which originate from reconstruction enhanced spin-split
$\mathrm{\pi}$$-$d coupling between C$_{60}$ and Ni(111): 1) the C$_{60}$ spin
polarization and conductance around the Fermi level are enhanced
simultaneously, which can be important for read-head sensor miniaturization; 2)
localized spin-polarized states appear in C$_{60}$ with a spin-filter
functionality, and 3) magnetocrystalline anisotropic energy and exchange
coupling in the outermost Ni layer are reduced enormously. Surface
reconstruction can be realized simply by controlling the annealing temperature
in experiments.
