0000000000180339
AUTHOR
Gustav Bihlmayer
Hybrid quantum anomalous Hall effect at graphene-oxide interfaces
Interfaces are ubiquitous in materials science, and in devices in particular. As device dimensions are constantly shrinking, understanding the physical properties emerging at interfaces is crucial to exploit them for applications, here for spintronics. Using first-principles techniques and Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate the mutual magnetic interaction at the interface between graphene and an antiferromagnetic semiconductor BaMnO3. We find that graphene deeply affects the magnetic state of the substrate, down to several layers below the interface, by inducing an overall magnetic softening, and switching the in-plane magnetic ordering from antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic. The grap…
Comparison of first-principles methods to extract magnetic parameters in ultra-thin films: Co/Pt(111)
We compare three distinct computational approaches based on first-principles calculations within density functional theory to explore the magnetic exchange and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions (DMI) of a Co monolayer on Pt(111), namely, (i) the method of infinitesimal rotations of magnetic moments based on the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker (KKR) Green function method, (ii) the generalized Bloch theorem applied to spiraling magnetic structures and (iii) supercell calculations with noncollinear magnetic moments, the latter two being based on the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave (FLAPW) method. In particular, we show that the magnetic interaction parameters entering micromagnetic …
Structural and electronic properties ofβ-FeSi2nanoparticles: The role of stacking fault domains
We use conventional and aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and ab initio calculations to investigate the structural and electronic properties of \ensuremath{\beta}-FeSi${}_{2}$ nanoparticles, which are a promising material for photovoltaic applications due to a band gap of 1 eV and a high absorption coefficient. The nanoparticles have average sizes of \ensuremath{\sim}20 nm, form aggregates, and are prepared by gas-phase synthesis. Amorphous SiO${}_{x}$ shells with thicknesses of \ensuremath{\sim}1.7 nm around \ensuremath{\beta}-FeSi${}_{2}$ cores are identified on individual nanoparticles using electron energy-loss spectroscopy, while stacking fault domains in the …
Mixed topological semimetals driven by orbital complexity in two-dimensional ferromagnets
The concepts of Weyl fermions and topological semimetals emerging in three-dimensional momentum space are extensively explored owing to the vast variety of exotic properties that they give rise to. On the other hand, very little is known about semimetallic states emerging in two-dimensional magnetic materials, which present the foundation for both present and future information technology. Here, we demonstrate that including the magnetization direction into the topological analysis allows for a natural classification of topological semimetallic states that manifest in two-dimensional ferromagnets as a result of the interplay between spin-orbit and exchange interactions. We explore the emerg…
Ab initio analysis of magnetic properties of the prototype B20 chiral magnet FeGe
FeGe in the B20 phase is an experimentally well-studied prototypical chiral magnet exhibiting helical spirals, skyrmion lattices and individual skyrmions with a robust length of 70~nm. While the helical spiral ground state can be verified by first-principles calculations based on density functional theory, this feature size could not be reproduced even approximately. To develop a coherent picture of the discrepancy between experiment and theory, we investigate in this work the magnetic properties of FeGe from first-principles using different electronic-structure methods. We study atomistic as well as micromagnetic parameters describing exchange and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, and di…
Topological-chiral magnetic interactions driven by emergent orbital magnetism
Two hundred years ago, Andr\'e-Marie Amp\`ere discovered that electric loops in which currents of electrons are generated by a penetrating magnetic field can interact with each other. Here we show that Amp\`ere's observation can be transferred to the quantum realm of interactions between triangular plaquettes of spins on a lattice, where the electrical currents at the atomic scale are associated with a peculiar type of the orbital motion of electrons in response to the non-coplanarity of neighbouring spins playing the role of a magnetic field. The resulting topological orbital moment underlies the relation of the orbital dynamics with the topology of the spin structure. We demonstrate that …