Noncollinear magnetism of thin Cr films deposited on a stepped Fe(001) surface -: art. no. 094413

A theoretical study of the noncollinear magnetic moments distribution of Cr films with thicknesses between one and two monolayers deposited on a semi-infinite Fe(001) substrate with terraces of monoatomic height is reported. The spin-polarized electronic structure is calculated with a self-consistent real space spd tight-binding model, parametrized to ab initio tight binding linear muffin tin orbital results in which we have implemented the possibility that the orientation of the spin-quantization axis changes from site to site, thus allowing noncollinear magnetic calculations in complex systems with a large number of inequivalent sites without symmetry requirements while preserving a high degree of accuracy. The calculated magnetic moment distributions are discussed in connection with the magnetic frustrations associated with structural defects.