Eur. Phys. J. D 52, 175-178 (2009)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2008-00254-4

Onset of non-collinear magnetism in small Fe clusters

¹ Instituto de Física, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, 78000 San Luis Potosí, Mexico
² Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Kassel, 34132 Kassel, Germany

Corresponding author: ^a pastor@uni-kassel.de

Received: 19 September 2008
Published online: 24 January 2009

Abstract

The onset of noncollinear magnetism in small Fe_N clusters is investigated by using a rotational invariant tight-binding Hamiltonian. The ground-state local magnetic moments, magnetic order and average magnetic moments are calculated as a function of the Coulomb exchange integral J. Representative results for Fe₃ and Fe₅ show that the noncollinear magnetic solutions are the most stable. A variety of qualitatively different self-consistent solutions is obtained as a function of J. This includes magnetic solutions with collinear and noncollinear spin arrangements. Our calculations are compared with previous density-functional results. Extensions and limitations of our work are also pointed out.