Noncollinear magnetism, magnetocrystalline anisotropy, and spin-spiral structures in Fe/W(110)

Spin-spiral structures in the Fe monolayer on a W(110) substrate are determined by means of the first principles film full-potential linearized augmented plane-wave method including full-noncollinear magnetism. The results obtained predict that spin-spiral structures with a wave vector of 0.05a(-1)-0.1a(-1), where a is the lattice constant of bulk W, are energetically favorable over the ferromagnetic (FM) state. When compared with the calculated magnetocrystalline anisotropy (MCA) energy, however, the formation of the spin-spiral structures may be suppressed due to the large MCA that arises from the strong spin-orbit coupling at the Fe/W(110) interface, and so the system appears to be the FM state-as observed in experiments. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.