Atomistic Spin Dynamics: Foundations and Applications

The purpose of this book is to provide a theoretical foundation and an understanding of atomistic spin-dynamics (ASD), and to give examples of where the atomistic Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation can and should be used. As argued in the text, a description of magnetism in an atomistic way is very natural and allows for an interpretation of experimental results in a clear and deep way. This description also allows for calculations, from first principles, of all parameters needed to perform the spin-dynamics simulations, without using experimental results as input to the simulations. As shown in the book, we are now at a very exciting situation, where it is possible to perform accurate and efficient atomistic simulations on a length- and time-scale which is balancing on the edge of what is experimentally possible. In this way, ASD simulations can both validate and be validated by state-of-the art experiments, and ASD simulations also have the possibility to act as a predictive tool that is able to explain the magnetization dynamics in experimentally inaccessible situations. The purpose of this book has been to communicate technically relevant concepts. An even larger motivation is to communicate an inspiration to magnetism and magnetization dynamics, and the emerging technological fields that one may foresee, e.g. in magnonics, solitonics and skyrmionics.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Density Functional Theory and Its Applications 1: Density Functional Theory 2: Aspects of the solid state 3: Applications of density functional theory Part II: Equation of Motion for Atomistic Spin-Dynamics 4: The atomistic spin-dynamics equation of motion 5: Spin dynamics at finite temperature 6: The damping term, from first principles 7: Implementation Part III: Applications 8: Ferromagnetic resonance 9: Magnons 10: Skyrmions 11: Ultrafast switching dynamics Part IV: Conclusions and Outlook 12: Outlook on magnetisation dynamics Part V: Bibliography and Index

About the Author :
Olle Eriksson received his PhD at the Physics Department, Uppsala University, in 1989. After spending three years in Los Alamos as a post doc he returned to the Physics Department, Uppsala University in 1992 where, he has worked ever since. Eriksson's research interests lies in materials theory, electronic structure theory, correlated electron physics, as well as theory of magnetism and magnetic materials. He has been active in this field for over thirty years. Eriksson received a chair professorship in Theoretical Magnetism, in 2002. Anders Bergman received his PhD in Physics at Uppsala University in 2006 on the subject of magnetic properties in nanostructured materials. After the PhD he has had postdoc positions at CEA Grenoble, France, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm and at Uppsala University. Currently Dr. Bergman is a researcher at Uppsala University where his main topics includes method development of electronic structure calculations and numerical studies of the magnetization dynamics of low-dimensional systems, topological magnets and chiral magnetis and related systems relevant for information processing applications. Lars Bergqvist received his Ph D in physics at Uppsala University 2005. He was a postdoc at Research Center Julich, Germany between 2005-2009, assistant professor at Uppsala University between 2009-2010 and since 2010 situated at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. His present research interests are energy efficient materials, in particular thermoelectrics, and magnetization dynamics in low dimensional and bulk systems with special focus on method development of finite-temperature magnetism. Johan Hellsvik received his PhD in physics from Uppsala University in 2011. He has been a postdoc at CNR-SPIN, L'Aquila, and at ISC-CNR Sapienza, Rome. Early research projects involved studies on the spin dynamics of spin glasses and diluted magnetic semiconductors. His present research activity is on the topics of multiferroic materials, ultrafast magnetization dynamics, and frustrated magnetism.

Review :
`This is a much needed book that advances our understanding of magnetism and especially spin dynamics from a first principles atomistic point of view. It presents a state-of-the art discussion of the exciting theoretical developments that have occurred over the last 20+ years, accompanying experimental discoveries of spin based phenomena and their practical utilization.' Joachim Stöhr, Stanford University, USA