2014/05/09 by Biswas, Sananda, Bihlmayer, Gustav, Narasimhan, Shobhana +1
#FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1405.2152
We have used ab initio density functional theory to compute the magnetic ground states of the surface alloy systems FeAu2/Ru(0001) and MnAu2/Ru(0001). For both systems, we find that the lowest energy magnetic configuration corresponds to a left-rotating spin spiral, in which the sense of rotation is determined by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. These spirals are lower in energy than the ferromagnetic configuration by 3-4 meV per nm2. We also find that FeAu2/Ru(0001) has a significantly high magnetic anisotropy energy, of the order 1 meV per Fe atom. By comparing with the corresponding freestanding alloy monolayers, we find that the presence of the Ru substrate plays a significant role in determining the magnetic properties of the surface alloy systems.