Edström A, Amoroso D, Picozzi S, Barone P, Stengel M. Curved Magnetism in CrI_{3}.
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2022;
128:177202. [PMID:
35570427 DOI:
10.1103/physrevlett.128.177202]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2021] [Revised: 03/08/2022] [Accepted: 04/07/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Curved magnets attract considerable interest for their unusually rich phase diagram, often encompassing exotic (e.g., topological or chiral) spin states. Micromagnetic simulations are playing a central role in the theoretical understanding of such phenomena; their predictive power, however, rests on the availability of reliable model parameters to describe a given material or nanostructure. Here we demonstrate how noncollinear-spin polarized density-functional theory can be used to determine the flexomagnetic coupling coefficients in real systems. By focusing on monolayer CrI_{3}, we find a crossover as a function of curvature between a magnetization normal to the surface to a cycloidal state, which we rationalize in terms of effective anisotropy and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya contributions to the magnetic energy. Our results reveal an unexpectedly large impact of spin-orbit interactions on the curvature-induced anisotropy, which we discuss in the context of existing phenomenological models.
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